


No One Looks Twice At a Blind Man

by agdhani



Series: Daredevil Crossover [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Constantine (TV), Daredevil (TV), Wolverine (Movies)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-05-27 17:59:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 94,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6294238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agdhani/pseuds/agdhani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt Murdock gets dragged into a world where he does not exactly fit in.  Not only must he figure out how he came to be there, and what has become of everyone and everything he has ever known, he must battle some old and new foes with some unexpected allies along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> Events in this story take place in a RP-world I have been a part of for ~15 years. The majority of characters are 'clones' of fictional characters and may or may not be aware of that status. Additional characters, both canon ones and OCs will be introduced as need.  
> I don't yet know the rating of the entire series, but if anything moves out of the Teen and Above (PG) rating, it will be noted.  
> This being Daredevil and Wolverine's world, however, violence is to be expected, and with Constantine thrown into the mix, some weirdness is bound to creep in.  
> There are a few small Season 1 Daredevil spoilers, for those who have not yet seen it. There are currently no references to Season 2 as I haven't seen it, but if any crop up, I will make note of them

No one looked twice at a blind man.

New in town, not yet familiar with the sounds and smells around him, additional effort and precautions were necessary as his white stick tapped out the path before him. The stick was unnecessary as anything more than a prop for those around him, but he made use of it as he moved, always cautious, always mindful of the surrounding details that most others took for granted. The constant hum of passing traffic that revealed average speed, the electric buzz of storefront marquees, the ebb and flow of foot traffic that announced doorways, street corners, curbs. The distant bitter tang of machine oil, fish and stale salt air that revealed the direction and proximity of the docks and surrounding warehouses. The more immediate sweet aromas that differentiated one restaurant from another and the more familiar traces of perspiration, perfume and cologne, fear and joy and refuse left out in alleys and curbside trash bins awaiting pickup. The chatter of those he passed, and who passed him in turn, business calls on cell phones or Bluetooth ear pieces, cheerful dialogue shared between walking partners or arguments in windows, sales pitches and the gentle whispers shared between lovers in rooms located above shops or through open car doors as people parted way for the day. School bus brakes squealing, buoyed by the raucous tumble of school children’s voices.

He knew those sounds, sounds of home, but here they were different. Here was not the sounds of home.

The hotel was nice, too nice by his standards, with chocolate mints upon the highest quality cotton sheets, champagne chilling in the ice bucket every evening, a tray of savory treats and array of toiletries always fully stocked. But he was no champagne man, not normally at least, and the scented supplies tickled his sensitive nose, masking smells he would much rather remain aware of from the world around him. Nor could he sleep upon the sheets, their scratchiness upon skin a known irritant that he avoided in exchange for sleeping upon the long sofa at one side of the room. He felt out of place there and as he again made his way across town, he wonder once more what he had been sent here to do.

He assumed he had been sent here to work with a new client, but after having been forced to wait for four days for the expected meeting to take place, he was beginning to believe it was nothing more than a farcical game meant to get him out of someone’s way.

But whose? Some memories that clung within his mind were vivid, acrid city streets, a parade of unending sirens criss-crossing the city night and day, cries of fear and pain and loneliness in the night, and a steady stream of traffic that had formed the undercurrent of the distinctive patterns he had always known as home.

Those memories ended with the abrupt recollection of the platform of a train station, a paper ticket in his hand, the inked surface directing him to this much smaller city, a wood and metal trunk, battered leather suitcase, and a crisp new attaché case containing a new laptop computer and cellphone being his only possessions now. The contents of the trunk were known, verified upon his arrival at the hotel, the suitcase carrying two crisp new suits, a sweat suit, and the expected sundries required in a man’s wardrobe.

The computer, however, its software freshly installed, contained no browsing history, no clues of the past he remembered. There were no numbers stored on the phone, not Karen’s, not Clare’s, not Foggy’s, a blank slate devoid of any life he had lived…as though he had never lived at all. Dialing those numbers from memory brought him dead end after dead end, numbers no longer in service or belonging to names and voices he did not know. It was as if his life, his history, had disavowed him and left him adrift in an unfamiliar world.

He knew his name, he remembered his childhood, his life. This was not amnesia, for he knew precisely who he was. So what, he wondered, had happened to strip all of those things away from him?

Why was he suddenly alone?

The one message on his phone, left in a computerized feminine voice without intonation or accent, had given him specific instructions. A hotel room, already paid for by the credit card he had in his wallet, a card with his name, with an unending limit, but which he had no idea how he was intended to pay. The cab that was to take him there, the driver helping him with his luggage without request. And an individual’s phone number and name, a number he was directed to call at a specific hour after his arrival in order to receive further instructions. Doing as directed, however, assuming there would be a client at the other end of that call, was met with a recorded message to call again the following day, at the same hour, a pattern repeated each of his first three days here…until today.

Today he had been given an address. Today, he hoped, the game that had drawn him here would end. With luck, whomever he was to meet would give him the answers he needed to fill the gaps within his head.

How had he come to be at that train station? Why did there seem to be nothing concrete before that ticket in his hand?

Frustrated, he had spent his free time learning this new city, the safe havens, the corners shrouded in a familiar form of comfortable darkness, looking for clues as to his purpose here. He had found none, but he had found a theatre, from which Vivaldi had been pouring through the open door, a handful of good places to eat, a few small boutiques where he could buy silk sheets and comfortable clothing, a bar where he could have a drink or two without feeling unnecessarily threatened.

Not, he thought with a slightly curled lip, that he ever truly felt threatened. Fear was only marginally in his vocabulary, something others felt but he rarely did.

Not anymore.

He stopped at the curb on a street corner, the last crossing to make before reaching the deli where he had been instructed to meet his client. He listened to the clicks of the crosswalk sign, each click marking off the seconds until the sign gave permission to proceed, and when the moment came began across alone, believing the cars would stop while listening to make certain they did. He stopped on the other side, his hesitation meant only to give him the opportunity to straighten his tie before entering the corner building, and when he turned towards the door, he was broadsided by another man talking loudly on a cell phone.

Whiskey. Cigarettes. Too much of both. A rustle around his legs that suggested a trench coat despite the relatively mild mid-morning weather.

“Sorry, mate,” the stranger said in haste, barely turning to look at whomever he had just run into.

British. Liverpool he guessed. Out of place in this city…as out of place as he felt himself. He blinked, preparing to say something should the stranger give him the chance, but the fellow continued on his way, speaking words about a transaction that made little sense as if the accident had never happened.

He scowled, sighed, and pushed open the diner door, the taste and smell of cigarettes and whiskey lingering in his nose and in his mouth. Oddly, for the moment, he did not find either of those things unpleasant.

All of the tables were empty. He cocked his head from side to side to be certain, to judge that no one was in the restrooms and only the kitchen and wait staff were present. Just as with the stranger in the street, no one paid him any special attention after noting his arrival. It was almost as if, like so much of humanity, he was invisible, and that was not necessarily a bad thing. But if his client stood him up, he thought with frustration as he sat in the booth the phone call had indicated, he was ready to call the whole thing off.

The problem was, he had nowhere else to go.


	2. 2

“Mr. Murdock.”

The voice was high, light, but masculine enough to reflect the heavy steps that had entered the diner, hesitated for a few heartbeats, and then crossed the tile floor to stop at his table. Still nursing his first cup of coffee through the fifteen minutes he had been forced to wait, he succeeded with the pretense of marginal surprise at being joined by the bulk that settled into the creaking bench seat across from him.

Most people were unsettled if he revealed how much a blind man noticed without eyes, and seeming to be slightly off guard might be enough to cause the other man to let his guard down.

The waitress arrived with her coffee pot, and though he could not see it, the movement of air revealed that his guest had declined coffee. When she offered to refill his, Matt shook his head no.

“I would give you a business card,” Matt said when the waitress had left them, “but I don’t seem to have any.” And no office from which to work either, but perhaps he would not need one. He did not yet know what sort of business this was, what was expected of him.

Without apologizing for his tardiness, the stranger propped his briefcase upon the table between them, snapped open the latches, and withdrew a paper folder from within it. It was a thin file, Matt knew, from the sound it made when placed upon the table before him. He put one hand upon it, but the stranger cleared his throat, a negative sound that stayed him.

“Do not open it here. Everything you need to know is inside.”

“This is not how I do business…”

“This time,” there was a smirking sneer in the other man’s nasally voice, “it is. Do this one thing for my employer, and you are free.”

“Free?” Matt didn’t know what the man meant by that, but the concept of blackmail, which this certainly must be, rubbed all of his senses the wrong way. “What about the others?”

“Others?”

“Foggy…Karen…”

“There are no others, Mr. Murdock. There is only you.”

Resisting the frown that tried to settle upon his lips, Matt listened to the man’s breathing, his heartbeat. There was no falsehood in his statement; whatever this was, it involved only him. Maybe the others had been killed already…”

“There must be…”

“There is only you…and once this is done, our employer will have no further need of your services.” The briefcase clicked closed.

“What services…”

The other was already rising, the fabric of his coarse suit straining against the plastic of the bench, pulled by his apparent bulk where it stretched too tight. Not the best fit then. Either he had recently gained weight or else his tailor was inept. Gauging by what Matt assessed to be signs of hypertension, he presumed it was the former.

“Read the file, Mr. Murdock. There will be no need for us to meet again. We will know when it is done.”

No valediction. No further words. Only the retreating steps, the creak of the door and jingle of the entry chime, leaving Matt alone again. Prying up the edge of the manila folder enough to feel the pages within, pages printed in braille for his convenience, he read only one word, peer, before closing it again. Eyes from the street, not the same hypertensive messenger but someone else, sitting within an expensive car whose motor purred as the driver waited for the instruction to leave, reminded Matt that he was to read this in the hotel, away from the possibility of anyone else seeing something they should not. Unless the diner staff could sight-read braille, there was no danger of that, but if this was some test of his ability to follow directions, as he believed every action he had made to ever previous delayed instruction response had been, it was wiser not to test it.

Besides, the realization that something had happened to those few he called friends, that he was, at least to the messenger’s knowledge, alone in the world, had robbed him of any appetite for breakfast he might have had. The now lukewarm coffee, which he finished in a quick series of gulps, would have to suffice. It would not soothe his knotted stomach, but until he read the documents he carried, he knew nothing would.

Getting back to the hotel, learning what was expected of him, would bring him that much closer to leaving this murky nightmare behind him.


	3. 3

Be at the docks, peer twelve, for a delivery, sign for it, make sure it was safe? No police. That was the mysterious duty he had been sent here to accomplish by the single page of braille within the file he had been given. There were four other pages, photos perhaps gauging by the weight and material of the paper, but his client obviously knew he would not be able to see them. Only the impressions of ink upon the back of each made by a ballpoint pen spoke of their contents, although even that he could not be certain of. The words, more than whatever might have been in the photos, were meant to unsettle him, anger him, push him to make a mistake.

That was not, he had thought bitterly as he’d tossed the folder aside upon the bed, going to happen.

Whoever had ‘hired’ him had clout and significant resources, that much Matt had already surmised. Enough of both that a small militia could have been sent to secure the delivery, and anyone with those resources would have obviously have had a lawyer, perhaps a dozen or more of them, on retainer. Anyone of those men or women could have been sent to sign delivery documents. That either put this delivery outside of his ‘employer’s’ main arena of business, something they wanted hidden from others, or else it was not Matt’s legal services that were wanted at all.

And if that was the case, it meant that someone other than Foggy knew of his dual life, dual identity, a dangerous dilemma that Matt was going to need to address before this was over. The position it put him in, the uncertain quandary about what was really expected of him, made him second guess himself and pace his hotel room furiously as the hours of the day ticked past. Every now and again that early morning brush with whiskey and tobacco came back to him, a distraction for reasons he could not afford to ponder. He was running out of time to make a choice. The ship was due in at 10:45 that night. He had to know by then what he would do, and would have to live with whatever choice he made. The last time he had met a dock shipment had not been what he expected; he wanted no surprises.

But even an afternoon trip to the docks and strategically asked questions of the work crews there gave him nothing substantial. There was no delivery due that night, no ship expected to dock, and no one who might have told him otherwise. A covert ship, perhaps, or another test.

His only choice was to go, to sign whatever documents there were, and pray that his signature would not be used against him…and that the cargo, whatever it was, would not be used to harm a single living soul. He did not need that upon his conscience.

Nine thirty. He dressed, clothing layered beneath clothing, a run through the darkness to his destination, over rooftops and through alleys, leaving no possible records of taxi drivers or receipts. He arrived in the shadows with an hour to spare, an hour in which to assess the movements upon the pier, to determine what sort of trap he might be facing. A pair of vehicles arrived and left in tandem, water delivery trucks that were in and out in under twenty minutes. A ship, something of substantial size, pulled slowly into the harbor and rocked silently for most of that hour, no one disembarking, no one upon the shore approaching it, until more vehicles, four SUVs and an armored truck, converged upon the peer. The pair of men from the armored truck disembarked and opened the rear door, sixteen men with automatic weapons poured out from the SUVs men in suits rather than commando attire, bodyguards with military experience, exactly the sort of militia Matt had assumed could keep any shipment safe from most threats that would possibly turn up in such a small city as Havesnport.

Rule out the need to protect, Matt thought, mentally checking that measure of the list. So far, however, nothing had been removed from the ship, no person or container, as if someone was awaiting further instructions.

10:30. Not yet time. Were they waiting for him? Was this the lure meant to trap him, meant to trick him into a revelation he was not set to make? Or were they just waiting for the exact minute to arrive.

There were voices, Japanese voices and accents speaking words he could not understand, followed by movement upon the ship and a container crane upon the shore swung out over the deck awaiting hookup to one of the many containers there. He had not noted anyone else with similar accents in his days in Havesnport, and wondered if these men were here merely to take advantage of the docks and warehouses. Like any city, Havensport had its criminal element, but nothing that had suggested to him that the Yakuza might operate here. Being Japanese, of course, did not automatically make one Yakuza, and a ship arriving from Japan, as he guessed this one had, did not necessarily have mob ties either. But they were hunches born of experience in Hell’s Kitchen, and Matt had long ago learned to pay attention to his hunches. They rarely led him astray.

Another vehicle approached, the purr of the motor matching the one Matt had heard outside the deli that morning. His actual client, he wondered, expecting the window to slide down, for the individual within to speak. But the window did not budge, and since the man could likely see through it, there really was little need. He was waiting behind bulletproof glass, Matt assumed, just as Matt was waiting with the shadows for protection, assessing those gathered around the armored truck, noting the ship’s crew connect the crane’s apparatus to the container they intended to bring ashore. They were waiting for him, Matt imagined.

What would happen when he stepped out amongst these men and their machine guns? How could he survive so many machine guns without revealing who, what, he was? How could he put his name upon documents he could not read and assume responsibility for an unknown that might be detrimental to his entire city or somewhere else?

Whatever it was, it would fit inside the armored truck. It was the only obvious place to transport whatever was being smuggled in, the only rational reason for that truck to be present.

It was a risk to walk into their midst like a normal man, a risk to know that he might have to fight his way out as a blind man and expose his identity or else not fight and die. It would also, however, be a risk to enter the group swinging, the man in the mask going on the offensive over what might prove to be nothing of import, when he expected that it was his alter-ego they were anticipating. If they wanted to tip his hand, the humble blind lawyer arriving to sign a simple piece of paper would surely disappoint them, and if it turned out that the shipment was something dangerous, something that should not be allowed into the country, into the city, Matt would follow it and prevent its arrival to its final destination. A single breath, a fighter’s breath to still his thoughts and spirit, and then he walked with the steady tap tap tap of his cane into the lion’s den.

Guns came up, aimed at his head, his torso, expected positioning that he measured by sound and smell and the slight movement of the air. No one fired, however, and no one spoke. The crane continued its work, now lowering the crate onto the dock and the sea continued to slap against the docks and the metal sides of the ship. Smaller than a typical container ship, transporting no more than a dozen containers Matt surmised, the ideal size to slide into this smaller berth amidst the larger ships and be gone again before anyone noticed. No security guards were on patrol here, and no vehicles, police or otherwise, passed on the distant street. This portion of dock was deserted, except for those gathered here. He was outnumbered, outgunned, and, with only a cane in his hand, seemingly disadvantaged.

The luxury car’s window lowered. Matt cocked his head just a little, remaining still so as not to draw some itchy trigger-finger’s fire. A voice from within the vehicle spoke. A female voice accompanied by an intoxicating floral scent, both heady and sweet and, he thought, carrying just a touch of something dangerous beneath its innocence. Again the words were Japanese, spoken after a man’s approach of the door, and then the window moved up again, though not all of the way. The crack it left was not big enough to see through but it was, he noted, enough to allow her perfume to continue to sweeten the night air. If it was meant to be a distraction for him, meant to throw off his sense of smell, the woman within would be disappointed to learn her efforts had failed.

Or not disappointed, perhaps. Intrigued…or at least informed of another detail about the man she had hired.

Orders were barked; men converged upon the container the moment it rested upon the ground, and someone hastened to remove the locks and chains that sealed the container closed as someone thrust a particle board clipboard into Matt’s hand. His fingers traced quickly over the page clipped there as he listened for the opening of the container and some indication of what was within with a peculiar sense of deja vu. There was no braille upon the page, and whatever had been used to print upon it had made little to no indentation of letters for him to perceive save for a logo at the top of the page, a stylized Japanese characters he could not read forming a circle around a three-legged bird, and an X near the bottom of the sort one would place near a signature line. Still listening, he took the pen short, slender fingers put into his hand.

“Shouldn’t you make sure you’ve gotten what you’ve ordered?” he asked, clicking the end of the pen.

“Sign.”

The man at his side, with his focus elsewhere, did not notice the clicking of the pen. Matt stayed the smirk as he went through the motions and the man took both pen and clipboard back, tucking the board beneath his arm and shoving the pen into his inside coat pocket.

“Go. Now.”

Matt did not hide the frown, but turned slowly, his cane testing the way, his movements slow as if gaining his bearings, finding his way, as any blind man would. None judged it suspicious, and only one set of eyes seemed to be following him as he took a few steps back towards the shadows between buildings, intentionally setting a course between container and the armored truck.

The container door opened. Deja vu was stronger this time as Matt assessed that there was only one thing in the container, one person…a male child seated cross-legged, chained by hands and feet, a serene expression upon his face yet with an air of trepidation about him that Matt could sense despite the barely perceptible heartbeat. Mind scrambling, assessing what he should do, what he dared do, he took another step but one of the men near him, taller yet thinner, shot out an arm, ending with a handgun in his fist, for a firm smack against the center of Matt’s chest, stopping him with a forcing of air from his lungs.

“Not that way.” He singlehandedly steered Matt closer to the armored truck, away from the container.

Black Sky.

He still did not know what that was. A weapon, Stick had said, before killing the child where Matt had been powerless to stop him. The only unusual thing about this child Matt could sense was his too low heartrate and breathing, but that was something anyone well-schooled in meditation could master, so perhaps it was not so unusual at all. The way the child was chained, the way none of the men who approached him to unlock the chains would touch him, the way they used the chains to draw him to his feet and propel him towards the armored truck, spoke of something to be feared. Their weapons were all pointed at the child now, no longer at Matt, as if his presence had been forgotten.

It would have been the perfect moment for Daredevil to strike, if he had been available. Matt Murdock, however, blind lawyer, was helpless to interfere and could only watch the child be stoically steered towards the truck.

The façade of stoicism faltered, however, as just for a moment, the boy, perhaps ten years old, lean and wiry from fasting, his skin covered with a sheen of perspiration accumulated over uncounted days within the container, looked into the eyes of the suited blind man, and although Matt could not meet that gaze, not directly, he could feel the piercing gaze, feel a hitch in breathing that belied whatever level of control the child had, and hear…without hearing…a distantly whispered, “Help me,” that struck Matt like a blow to the gut.

Then the child was pulled on again, the faltered half step barely noticed by his controllers. What was noticed was the visual exchange between child and lawyer, and it won Matt a hard enough blow to the back of the head that he crumpled to the paved surface, his senses going black as consciousness failed him.


	4. 4

It wasn’t his first night cruising his bike through Havensport’s streets. Sometimes, no matter the weather, taking the bike out onto the open road, rolling full throttle, or cruising slowly through the streets of the city, were the only ways to clear his head. He understood why he had been put in charge of the work crews; they respected a man of strength and Logan had what it took to keep peace amongst any who thought it more important to fight then to do the work they had been contracted to do. But Logan did not consider himself to be a leader, so solitary sojourns in the dark restored some of his peace of mind in preparation for whatever was going to be thrown at him the next day

Some days it felt like the only peace of mind he could get.

He had turned onto the nearly deserted main drag after watching a convoy of black SUVs flanking an expensive, nondescript black luxury car and an unmarked black armored vehicle pass through the intersection in front of him. He knew almost everyone of import in Havensport, either by face and name, or by reputation, from politicians to community leaders, families with old history and deep pockets to gang leaders and the heads of organized crime families. The size of the convoy, however, seemed unusually out of place in a city the size of Havensport, enough so to make him scowl as the last tinted windowed vehicle rolled down the dark street to his right. Leaving the location of the docks, which suggested a new element moving into town, or maybe just passing through. He could have followed them, but at that moment, he had no proof that they were any sort of threat to him, or anyone else he knew, anyone within Havensport and its surroundings.

The road would take them west, out of the city if they travelled far enough. Logan hoped they would keep on driving and, if they were trouble, take their trouble somewhere else. He wasn’t afraid of a fight, but tonight he was not looking for one. He wanted a drive, maybe a beer, a little peace and quiet.

When the light turned green however, the bike beneath him turned towards the docks as if possessing a mind of its own, and though Logan scowled when he realized what he had done, he did not turn back around. He often rode along the docks, finding the feel of that space to be a calming one, but this detour was not strictly for the pleasure of a ride. If those in the vehicles had disembarked from a ship, he might at least be able to learn where they were from. That seemed an important detail to know, as if knowing it would explain their business here and reveal their threat level. The prickle of hair that rose upon the nape of his neck when they passed suggested a threat, even if nothing visible about the convoy had.

He had not even been able to see anyone within them upon which to base such a hunch.

A variety of cargo ships berthed in the harbor, some appearing to have been there long enough to have sunk roots down into the relatively shallow water. A sluggish economy meant fewer deliveries into and out of the port, and some ships owned by local companies had not sailed in months. It was a grim reminder of the local conditions, all the more reason, Logan mused, for the construction project he was supervising to hire so many out of work townsfolk.

There was one small ship, however, dwarfed by those around it but still big enough to hall a considerable payload, that was edging away from the docks now, the writing upon its hull a form of familiar character he had seen in a long time…lettering not common in Havensport by any means. It was just a ship, delivering or picking up cargo, nothing necessarily suspicious in that, and even in combination with the convoy, he might not have thought much of it…

Except for the body of a man face down in the oily muck of the dock’s paved surface.

Eyeing the vicinity for any lingering threat, Logan rolled the bike to a stop, leaving the engine running as he swung off and approached the prone man. Expensive suit, he thought. White cane…shit…a blind man. Who the hell beat up a blind man and left him for dead on the docks?

Probably dead, Logan told himself. Muggings didn’t tend to happen in the open like this, so unless the fellow had staggered here from the shadows, he’d been left where the scuff marks on the pavement suggested he had been assaulted and fallen. There were enough recent tire tracks here to have belonged to the convoy, enough footprints to have belonged to a dozen or more individuals, the imprint in the sludge of a container’s weight left where the departing ship’s crane could have reached. Delivery or pick up, he mused, gingerly feeling the side of the man’s neck for a pulse.

Healthy and strong. Good. He was alive. There was no pooling of blood on the pavement or spread across the man’s jacket, so probably not a gunshot wound. There was some blood upon the back of his head, suggesting that something had struck him hard enough to knock him out, but from the back at least, there appeared no other damage. Logan tugged him by the shoulder to carefully roll him over in order to further inspect him for injury, carefully cradling the man’s injured head…and scowled.

Well shit…

He had not been expecting that one at all.

There were no defensive wounds on the man’s hands, nothing that suggested he had put up a fight…and Logan knew this individual was capable of one helluva fight. Don’t tell her he’s here, he reminded himself as he picked up the man’s red-tinted glasses from where they had fallen. Don’t you dare, Logan…that was the last thing she needed.

If he was here…somehow connected to the convoy, the ship, whatever shipment had been taken or left…then nothing but trouble was going to follow.

“Where…?” Matt groaned, fingering his skull as consciousness brought him back to waking. Oil, fishy salt air, the slapping of water against stone and wood and metal…and a man bending over him who smelled even more strongly of a flavor of metal he had never encountered before.

Or maybe he had and that memory had been robbed from him as well.

The other man’s heart beat was incredibly strong and the feel of his arm, when Matt grasped onto it to pull himself up to sitting, was unlike anything else in the world.

There was metal in him, encasing his skeleton…and he was not entirely human. He was something more.

“Havensport docks, bub…easy now…you took quite a wallop to the head…”

“I can tell.” Not enough damage for him to be concerned about, the exploration of his fingers in his hair told him, but enough to have knocked him out. The other heartbeats were gone, other footsteps, the rumbling of vehicle engines save for a single motorcycle also gone, and the ship in question was now moving further out to sea.

“Where are…?”

“Gone…but you know that.” Logan, relieved the man was going to live, helped him to his feet. “Who were they? Why did they leave you like…?”

A single word came to Matt, from the recesses of memories he could not fully access. Something that had occurred between his last conscious memory and the moment of reawakening on the train station platform. It fell from his lips, a strangled sort of word tangled within a jumble of realizations and questions.

“Hand.”

Logan frowned and turned his head to watch the lights of the retreating ship, absently handing the man his glasses and bending over to retrieve the dropped cane. He knew The Hand. He wished he didn’t…but wishing wouldn’t make it any less real. They had been canon memories, buried deep in places that Logan did not often look, memories that had no connection to true ‘reality’, memories of things that were never really REAL. Havensport was his reality now, had been for more than ten years; none of those canon recollections should matter.

But those memories included that dangerous and frightening organization, and if that organization had been resurrected…had been made real…then God knew what else lay in store.

What in the hell did The Hand…the Yakuza…want with a relatively small city like Havensport? Wasn’t New York, Los Angeles…London…hell anywhere else but Havensport, better for the sort of business those organizations conducted? Then again…maybe that was precisely what had brought them here. Maybe they thought they could go unnoticed here…or that their strengths would allow them to dominate the darkness here in a way they could not in a bigger city.

“And they left you here…alive?”

While Matt could tell that the man who had found him was surprised about that, and equally concerned about the name he had uttered, Matt felt no threat in him.

“Apparently.” He accepted his cane and glasses, and after a quick inspection of the frame and lenses, settled them back upon his face. “Do I know you?”

Logan shook his head, realizing as he did so that the man would not see that gesture, and replied, “Not exactly…but I know who you are.” Boy did he ever. “Matt Murdock, right?” Revealing anything else he knew about the disoriented bloke would only cause more confusion then either of them needed right now.

“Yes.” Matt offered his hand. “Thank you for finding me here.”

“Just lucky I came along when I did…but you seem okay…”

Knowing he healed quicker than most, but not wanting to tip this stranger to any of his peculiarities, Matt said, “I think I’ll live.”

“Name’s Logan by the way. Can I drop you somewhere?” Logan wasn’t one for sharing the bike, but taking this man wherever he called home would give him an idea of what family he belonged to. It might also give him other clues.

“Hilton North.” He could have easily made it there on his own, just as he had made it to the docks on his own, but he did have quite a headache, and he was as curious about this unusual man as the man was of him. Accepting a ride might afford him a few details, or might at least give him time to learn how Logan knew of the Hand…and what he knew about them. Besides, he had never ridden on a motorcycle before. He was unexpectedly curious about what that must feel like.

“Not so far…I can get you there.” Not a House then. Maybe from out of town, having followed The Hand here. He righted the bike as he swung one leg over it and waited for Matt to climb on behind him. He offered one hand in case the other man needed assistance, but he did not expect him to take it. Matt Murdock might be blind, but he got along better than most men whose eyesight was intact. When Matt climbed on behind him without accepting his offered help, Logan smirked to himself and nodded appreciatively.

It was just as he anticipated. This was no cripple.

No words were exchanged during the short ride. Matt knew he could have heard anything Logan said over the rush of wind past their faces, but he did not know if Logan could hear him. Logan had an advantage in that regard, knowing he would be heard, but this was not the best place for the sort of dialogue they needed to have. When he stopped the bike in the first empty parking space he found, the hotel not particularly busy this night, Logan shut off the engine and dismounted after Matt had done so. He did not want to invite himself up, but Matt’s offer of, “There’s beer in the mini-fridge…” was the perfect opening.

They were both on the same mental page. It was nice to have that for a change.

Matt did not see the peculiar looks thrown his way as he crossed the lobby to the elevator, Logan in tow, but he felt them as if they were tiny needles raking his skin. He must be a frightful mess. He could smell the accumulation of oils, mud, sea water, and natural body sweat. He would need a new suit now…or at least a clean one…but that would have to wait until morning. At this late hour, not even the hotel cleaning staff was likely around to take care of it.

Relieved that his room key was still in his coat pocket, he let Logan into the room, noting the man’s natural hesitancy as he assessed the room for threats, and then both men went inside.

“I’m gonna get cleaned up…make yourself at home.” He gestured to the fridge as he dropped the cane upon the still unused bed, found his clean sweatpants, and moved away towards the bathroom.

Logan grunted his thanks.

Before Matt closed the bathroom door, he heard the sucking sound as the refrigerator door opened and the clinking of bottles and cans within it. An aluminum can popped open with a hiss. Matt smiled.

It would be nice to have the company. Logan might be a stranger, but Matt sensed no threat in him…only the potential for great physical strength. Not looking for a fight tonight, not even a sparring kind, Matt was contended not to test him. Besides, a man with metal around his bones would not be easily defeated in a fight. He would be a better ally than enemy.

Logan was thinking much the same thing as he made a slow circle around the room, the beer can cold within his hand. There were few personal effects here, no real clue as to how long Murdock had been around, nothing that tied him to anyone else. A trunk…Logan guessed its contents without opening it, the open suitcase now holding a pair of jeans, another silk dress shirt, crisp and white and a dark blue tie, two pairs boxers and socks. White sneakers were neatly placed beside the nightstand, and a collection of previously worn underclothing was heaped upon the bed next to the suitcase. There was a briefcase and computer…an open file with documents in braille and photos, but just as he reached for them, hoping for clues, he thought better of it.

Why pry into a potential ally’s personal life? They would talk soon enough.

The water ran for a good long while, the warm steam creeping from beneath the door into the main room evidence of hot shower, the sort a man took to relieve aching muscles…or an aching mind. Something troubled Murdock, something more than The Hand, Logan surmised, something personal. Something that was written all over his pensive features when he emerged from the bathroom only in sweatpants, his upper body still damp from the shower and his hair wet and disheveled.

“Want a beer too?”

“Yeah…thanks.” Bonding over beer. Matt had not done that since the last time he and Foggy had been to the bar. That felt like forever ago, and the compulsion to get back to Hell’s Kitchen, to find Karen and Foggy and restore balance to his life was a strong one. But he could not go back now. Not while Black Sky was out there.

Not while a boy needed his help.

“Did you see the convoy?”

“I did. My curiosity about them led me to you. They were Hand, did you say?”

“I don’t know…I heard it mentioned…the only Japanese word I understood…but I think those at the dock were Yakuza…”

“Probably both,” Logan snorted.

Matt settled upon the sofa where he had been sleeping the last several days, moving about the room without his cane as if a man whose vision was intact. “You’ve dealt with them before then.”

“Both…yes. It was…years ago though.” Years ago in canon, never in his now lived life. “Lived in Japan for awhile…they’re not good sorts to get tangled up with.”

“Wasn’t my choice.” Logan waited for Matt to elaborate, but he left the comment hang in the air between them. “What do you know about a weapon called Black Sky?”

“Weapon?” So the Japanese mob was moving a weapon into Havensport? May have already done so, if that convoy was any indication. Logan’s brow furrowed as he sat in a nearby chair, the aluminum between his fingers giving away a little beneath the tension in his grasp. “What sort of weapon?”

“A child…a boy…”

“Not a thing then.” A mutant maybe…or a Sentinel of unusual power…or some sort of genetically enhanced clone? Did they even make clone children? Wasn’t that somehow illegal?

Of course, legality was not exactly a bar that stopped the Yakuza, or the Hand, from doing something.

“Did you see this kid?” Not see, exactly. He knew that was impossible. But Murdock’s senses allowed him to see in ways men with eyes could not, and Logan would bet his life on the lawyer having come into contact with that weapon there on the docks.

“In a container…they brought him off the ship…transported him in an armored truck. I don’t know what he is…what they want with him…but there was something…not human about him…” Like me, he thought with a sigh. “Like you,” he said aloud.

“That obvious?” Of course it was. Murdock knew the truth, or at least parts of it, before words had been spoken between them. Much the same as Logan knew. Having nothing to hide from the lawyer turned vigilante, wanting his trust for a fight that Logan thought best not to undertake alone, he gulped down the remainder of the beer and decided on taking a chance. Normally a loner, there were people he needed to protect now, and if Murdock had come here in pursuit of the same enemy, it was better they work together instead of against each other.

Schtict.

It was the sound of a knife opening, a blade puncturing skin, tainted by the smell of metal and blood and a flash of pain that it seemed Logan was accustomed to. The subtle changes in the air brought the man’s hand within Matt’s reach, and he carefully reached out in return, his fingers finding the sides of the long, metal tines, razor sharp and deadly, that protruded from Logan’s fist. Hot metal, body temperature from having been ensconced within his flesh like a cat’s claws, of the same metal, Matt suspected, that encased every one of the man’s bones.

A man use to pain just as he was, Matt mused when his exploration was satisfied. A man use to fighting.

No wonder Matt felt an affinity for him.

“Natural?”

“Yeah. The claws at least…the adamantium…not so much.”

The thought of what it must have taken to infuse his body with metal that way…the fact that it had been done without killing him…that Logan, or any man, could live through something like that…

Matt shook his head with disbelief. If he thought he could survive something like that, it would have been one hell of an advantage. But he knew better. Normal men didn’t live through that sort of agony. That meant Logan was one of them.

One of those mutants he’d heard vaguely about but had never, to his knowledge, encountered. Mutation was the only way to explain the natural occurrence of claws in a man.

“You’ve fought the Hand before. What are they…exactly?”

“I have…and unless they’ve moved out of Havensport, I will again.” The empty beer can was crushed and tossed towards the waste bin near the door. It ricocheted off the wall and landed directly in the bin. “Martial arts assassins…a little magic dabbling thrown in…” Or a lot, he thought, not entirely certain since the concept of magic still perplexed him in spite of everything he had seen at Tigh Ard since moving in there. “It gives them an edge.”

“And if this…Black Sky is magical…or a mutant…”

“Mutant I can deal with. Maybe you too.” That would depend on the nature of the boy’s mutation, for there were some even Logan was hard pressed to win against. “The arms of the Yakuza too…” Hell, between the two of them, Logan laid odds on him and Murdock if it came to a fight. “But if there’s magic…I might know a guy…”

That was a man Logan was not sure he trusted. A good man to drink and smoke with, good at what he did it seemed, but Logan didn’t really trust magic, how he could be expected to trust the man with that…

There might be no other choice. At least John Constantine’s extensive knowledge and resources might give them some hint as to what Black Sky was and how to combat it.

“I would like to talk to him.”

“Tomorrow.” Logan belched and got to his feet. Matt stood as well. “Pretty damn late now…ain’t nothing we can do tonight. Tomorrow…you and me…we go looking for that convoy…and I’ll bring Constantine by for a chat…if I can peel him away from whatever he’s up to these days.”

“Constantine.” Matt wondered where he had heard that name before. Somebody Foggy knew, perhaps. Foggy seemed to know everyone of interest.

Or maybe Matt had worked with him before. Too bad he could not remember if he had.

“Tomorrow then.” He accepted the offered handshake, meeting it squarely when he often was forced to pretend he did not notice an offered hand.

“Good night…Daredevil.”

Logan already knew the truth.

And Matt, despite a nervous flutter of trepidation for being exposed…known as he was…was fine with that.


	5. 5

Despite his conviction that the mutant could be trusted, that the man had enough secrets of his own to be in no rush to reveal someone else’s, the fact of being recognized, not only as the small-time criminal lawyer Matt Murdock but also as the vigilante devil that clawed within his skin, was still unsettling. Only two people, possibly three, knew both alter-egos, and from what Matt could determine, two of those three could no longer be reached by any means he had. He had not tried to call Father Lantom, but he guessed, even as his hand reached to the coffee table and rested upon his phone, that an effort to do so would also be in vain. What sort of world was it, he mused, letting his hand slide from the table to dangle upon the floor, was it when even a priest might not be safe. How everyone he had ever known could have been so easily erased from his life, he could not guess, but if this was the same fate that awaited anyone he knew, or who knew him, then Logan’s life could well be in danger.

Then again, he thought wrly, the mutant could certainly take care of himself. He did not have to witness the man in action to know that.

But how could Logan know both of his names? And what other surprised did the mutant hold for him?

He also wondered once again why the name Constantine struck a familiar chord. Nothing in Matt’s world involved magic. Not as far as his memories served at least. Everything he had ever experienced could be explained rationally, logically, through real world acts…science…or at least through faith in the divine. Even his blindness, his super-enhanced senses, could be explained as an effect of the chemicals he had been exposed to as a child, though he could not say if others would have been likewise affected under the same circumstances. Maybe there was something unique about him that had permitted the fate spun for him.

Or maybe that had been a form of magic. Maybe John Constantine had the means to reverse the damage done to his eyes.

But Matt did not want that, not really at least. Sometimes he missed the sky, missed the beauty of people’s faces, but he was satisfied with the life he had been given, appreciated the gifts bestowed in place of his vision, the strengths he had accumulated that allowed him to be a force for good in the world. Without those extraordinary gifts, he would be paralyzed, helpless to change the world except from a lawyer’s bench, which he knew from experience did not always work in peoples’ favor.

He was grateful every day for not being a helpless man.

When sleep did finally chase the restless thoughts from his mind, those short dreaming hours were plagued by haunting images of his father gunned down in the alley near his home, the screech of tires and the crash of metal barrels filled with toxic chemicals that had ended in blindness, and the pain of a child pleading for aid without uttering a word. The series of convoluted images and sounds ended in an explosion of color, vivid shades of cerulean, amber, and crimson that he had not actually seen since he was nine years old.

The memory of those colors, in addition to the dream fragments, had his sightless eyes darting from side to side as he bolted upright upon the sofa, the thundering of his heart obliterating every other sound around him. If anyone had been in the room to attack him, he would not have heard them.

His usual meditations calmed him, but his mind clung to the fading memories of color with a melancholy pang in his breast that could not be easily dispelled. Eventually he concluded that he would have to let those shards go if he was to have peace of mind, body and spirit again. Some memories were not worth clinging to.

Some memories only brought him pain.

It was too early to expect the town’s gym to be open, but the hotel was upscale enough to have a recreation room with an exercise gym, and so he threw on his sweatshirt, found the hand wraps he always kept available, and went down to the first floor of the hotel to blow off the nervous energy his dream had fostered. Two hours later, as other guests trickled down to the hotel restaurant for the breakfast buffet, Matt gave up his spot at the punching bag, physically drained but mentally still once again. The devil always demanded a victim to satiate its spirit; this morning, the bag was it. It was exactly what he had needed.

Another shower, cooler this time, followed by coffee, eggs and toast, found him dressed and waiting for Logan’s arrival. It was barely after seven in the morning and Matt doubted the mutant was even awake yet. He sent his soiled suits to the dry cleaners, and his other dirty clothes to the hotel’s laundry service, settling on the jeans, the white, dye-free button down shirt, and white sneakers for the day’s outing. Not his usual work attire…but he had no other choice…and this day was not about lawyerly work anyhow.

Today, his plans were personal.

He had played his part there on the docks and, as Logan had pointed out, had been allowed to live in spite of what he knew. Maybe the woman within the luxury car had determined he knew nothing of value that could hurt her plans, deeming him unthreatening. Perhaps he had disappointed her by not fighting back to save the child when he’d had the chance. But speculating was not getting Matt anywhere. He would need more data before he could decide upon a course of action. He needed to know if the Hand, and the boy they held, were still in town, or still near enough to be dangerous. If they were not, if they had moved on, he would leave tracking them to Logan and return home to trace the shambles of his own life.

If they were still within his reach, that would be another matter. He would need to take out the Japanese agents living here, save the boy if he could…

Kill him.

Matt scowled at the voice in his head as he leaned against the sill and enjoyed the warmth of the early morning sun upon his face. That was Stick’s voice, a reminder of Matt’s last encounter with Black Sky, which had ended in a fight upon the docks of Hell’s Kitchen and his mentor killing a boy Matt had tried to save. Based on what Stick had said, this child had to be a different one. There could only be, according to Stick, one Black Sky…or one at a time at least.

If Black Sky was a force to be stopped, if that mission had been so important, why had he not come to Havensport to kill this boy too? Or had he been here, without telling Matt…maybe without knowing Matt was in town…and had killed the child somewhere along the exit route the convoy had travelled. Were the efforts he and Logan intended to make today in vain?

Whatever the case, Matt was no killing anyone, especially a child who had, he was sure, asked for his help. Whatever the boy was, whatever he would, or could, be, he was still a child and no child deserved to die for the designs of the adults who controlled his life

But if the child was as dangerous as Stick alluded to, to others around him, to himself, could Matt really allow him to live?

He scowled and listened to the distant heavy steps entering the hotel.

Logan had arrived.


	6. 6

“This had bloody well better be worth it, mate,” John grumbled, shoving the half smoked cigarette, now snuffed out on the side of the main entrance door, behind his ear before following the other man into the hotel. Not normally an early riser, Logan had only found him awake because he’d stumbled out of bed to take a piss. John would have blown him off and staggered back to bed, his late night’s research for Curt having come at the cost of too much booze and a nasty hangover that was only going to be cured by another drink. But the mention of a threat in town, something bigger than any of them, was a mystery John was uninclined to pass up on. Solving magical dilemmas was what he did, after all…and a mystery…well, hell, that ought to be worth a little lost sleep.

How much worth it remained to be seen.

Matt’s nostrils flared as he turned from the window. There it was again, the cigarettes and whiskey…same brands as yesterday, carried by the same footsteps, following directly behind Logan’s heavier ones. John Constantine, he presumed, wondering if the scents had haunted him yesterday because of some forgotten sense of familiarity. He crossed the room, closed his hand around the door, and waited there to open it just as Logan’s knuckles rose to rap upon it.

“Please…come in…”

“You’re up early.” Logan had expected nothing less, but it seemed something to say as he bumped past Matt, heading straight for the mini-fridge. Yes, it was early to drink. No, he damn well didn’t care. He had a feeling this was going to be a very long day, and if he was being dragged into a fight, he was going to make sure to take advantage of whatever hospitality Murdock, or the hotel at least, could provide him.

“So are you.” The words were to Logan, but the turn of Matt’s head followed the other who entered, a wiry man of similar height, who smelled not only cigarettes and whiskey, but also loneliness, desperation, despair. World-weariness, Matt labeled it.

John eyed him with a peculiar expression. “Do I know you?”

“Only that we bumped into one another on the street yesterday…”

Eyes sparking with recognition, John muttered, “Yes…I remember that now…sorry for the rush by…I was in a bit of a…”

“State…yes…I know…”

“Murdock…meet John Constantine. Constantine, Matt Murdock…”

Though John had a feeling they had met before that run in, he could not recall where. A bar, perhaps, when he had been too inebriated to remember. Oh lord, he thought suddenly, he hadn’t slept with this man, had he? His gaze narrowed, eyes scanning the stranger up and down. Fit…handsome…nice ass…not bad at all. But John tended to avoid people with baggage if he could help it, and this guy looked to be carrying a lot of that…and not just his blindness. How the hell had Logan hooked up with the likes of him? What, he mused, was the blind man hiding. “Logan tells me you’ve got a mystery for me to solve.”

Getting down to business was the safest bet for all of them…the least embarrassing at any rate.

Matt’s head cocked in Logan’s direction as he closed the door. He heard the passing of a bottle into John’s hand, heard the shoving of a hand into a coat pocket, noted Logan’s collapse into the chair where he had sat last night as if he had designated that to be his chair. Territorial tendencies were noted as Matt came around to the sofa once again. John continued to stand, a restless beast seeming to feel caged within the spacious hotel room. Matt wondered what was going on within his head that could explain John’s suddenly nervous, elevated pulse.

“We’re looking for information about something called Black Sky…” Matt began.

“That’s pretty vague…”

“It’s said to be a weapon…”

“A weapon…?” Matt frowned at yet another interruption. This conversation was going to go nowhere if John did not cease with the interruptions.

“Burakkusukai…in Japanese,” added Logan, as if the word in its original tongue might somehow make a difference. It would at least, he hoped, divert Matt’s growing annoyance and keep him from punching Constantine in the face. Come to think about it, if John interrupted either of them again, Logan just might be the one to do the punching.

It apparently did make a difference, since John’s expression tightened, the corners of his mouth turning down into frowning scowl, the hand from his pocket lifting to liberate the cigarette from behind his ear. “You sure about that, mate? That’s not supposed to…it can’t…I’d have heard…”

“It can exist,” Matt said firmly. “It does exist…”

“And it’s apparently in Havensport…or passed through here last night.” Logan wasn’t sure what sources John might have had to tell him about such things coming into Havensport, but it was not the time to ask

“Did you see it?” asked John with skepticism.

“Murdock did.”

Matt could feel John’s flummoxed expression on him and shrugged. “I was there when it came in…I’ve encountered it before…a child…”

The blind man hadn’t seen anything. John felt certain of that. Logan must be mistaken…or meant something other than what he’d said. “Not just any child. The manifestation of a Kami…a Japanese nature spirit…” He finished his drink, put the tiny bottle on the coffee table, and scratched the back of his head. What would a Kami be doing in Havensport?

“A spirit? Not a weapon?”

“What sort of nature spirit?” Logan didn’t like the sounds of that, but at least it seemed like he had turned to the right man for answers. Better a nature spirit then a demon or someone that could blow shit up with its mind…or worse.

“I’m going to need to dig through my resources…I’ve not run into many Japanese ghoulies…brush up on my Japanese lore. It’s not necessarily bad…from what I recall…all depends on who’s got their fingers in its pie…”

“The Yakuza,” Logan quickly offered. It seemed a safer answer than the full truth.

But Matt was less certain of that and added, “The Hand.” If The Hand was also a semi-mystical entity, it might give John some other direction for his research. And if it was going to take something more than a set of fists…or two…to defeat them, it was better he and Logan knew that now.

“The Hand, eh…” John’s scowl deepened. He had heard the name before, knew a few rumors about that organization, but rumors were not facts; he was going to have to dig deeper, but maybe it would help him discover details about Black Sky that might be helpful. “They’ve been around a long time…not the sort of dabblers you two want to be messing around with…”

Grunting, Logan finished his beer. “We’ve dealt with them before.” Magic or not, martial arts assassins were right down his alley. Matt’s too.

“Not with a functioning Burakkusukai on their side…if that’s what they’ve got. That’s not something even I’d look forward to going up against.”

“You said it’s not necessarily bad,” pushed Matt. “Does that mean the boy can be…?”

“That’s no regular boy. Saved? Can’t say, mate…not without some research…”

“We don’t have time for research, bub. We have to find that thing and…”

“YOU have to find it,” John corrected. “Until we know what we’re dealing with, finding it is your job. You want to stop it…contain it…that’s my job. I’ll get on it…get back to you…”

“We’re not killing a child…”

John shrugged. “Not my department…but it may come down to that, mate. Don’t jump into a fight you’re not prepared to take all the way…”

“I’ll do whatever it takes,” Matt growled.

“Except kill a kid…but if I’m right…that thing isn’t a kid…and killing it might be the only way…”

Logan got back to his feet. “If it comes to that…I’ll handle it.” Killing children wasn’t his way, but if John’s hunch was accurate, and Black Sky was no child, only something in the form of a child, then Logan wasn’t afraid to make that tough call…and spare Matt’s sensibilities in the process.

Matt growled again, prepared for an argument which neither of them would win, but John interrupted. “Give me a few hours…while you two do your own leg work…and I’ll let you know what I find. If it’s not in Havensport, it’s less pressing…if it is here…”

“We’ll find him.” Not an it. Matt refused to see the boy that way, title or not. Until John offered him proof of the danger a boy could present, until he proved that danger, Matt was sticking to his guns.

“We will.” At least that much, Logan and Matt could agree upon.


	7. Interlude

He didn’t belong in this world.

He knew it, even as he stood mutely, listening to those who controlled his life now through a trick of creation that had been as out of his control as his original birth. It had taken an unspecified number of sleepless, malnourished, dehydrating days for them to convince him that he was no more real than the air, and that, whatever gifts he possessed, his life was entirely in the hands of those who gathered around the bar at the other side of the room, martinis in hand, discussing business in a tongue he did not now, nor ever would, understand. It kept him oblivious to their true intent, kept him ignorant, and the threat of non-existence was enough to force his compliance.

They might consider him not-real, but he was real enough to know he breathed, he lived, and if their words were true, that those who created him held the power over him that could end that ‘life’ as easily as it had been created, then he did not want to die.

Besides, the duty he had been given was not a terrible one. The child, of Indian decent, and was kept always in chains, always monitored, never alone. For his own protection, the Japanese handlers had said, for there were forces in the world who wanted to kill him, destroy him for those things which set him apart.

Creel did not know what those things were, had seen no indication that the child was anything more than a prisoner, but he too understood being hated, feared, hunted for his differences. If the child was truly special, as their handlers insisted, if he was important to them, why keep him in chains?

He did not ask, however. The impulse to question, at least out loud, had been stripped from him. But in his head, he wondered all the same. In his experience, those held in captive chains were normally feared, not revered. Without knowing the truth, however, why take the risk?

Dying wasn’t worth the effort. For either of them.

The boy never spoke, never slept. He ate sparingly and endured endless hours of indoctrination behind a crystalline aluminum panel that kept him separate from his other captors. During those hours, Creel was often the only one in the room with him, the two silently regarding one another or doing their best to pretend they were alone. In the hours when Creel was permitted to eat and sleep, the boy was taken into some other room, unshackled for some other form of training that Creel was never allowed to witness. It was something physical, for the boy would be returned to his chamber covered in a sheen of exertion and sometimes blood, his eyes revealing a weariness he rarely expressed otherwise. He endured everything with the same stoic silence as Creel. He would resume his usual cross-legged position and stare into empty space once more as though he had never moved from it.

Sometimes though, in those minutes directly after his return, there would be singing. Not verbal, not something that could be heard with the ears, but singing all the same, strange words, a haunting melody that invariably left Creel feeling morose and alone. In those moments, he understood that he was all the child had, the only real line of defense, the only ‘friend’…that without him, he would be entirely at the mercy of their handlers

He knew how it felt to be at another man’s mercy. He felt it every day. If he could help it, this child would never have to feel the way he felt now.

But the fear of oblivion was real, and he had no idea how to truly protect the child’s life when he had no true control over his own.


	8. 8

Logan had promised him a free meal and free whiskey in exchange for what he knew, one of the handful of reasons he had pushed through a day’s research with as much gusto as he had. His research collection was not as extensive as it could have been…as it should have been…and there was nowhere on Tigh Ard’s property that he could have kept such a collection if he’d had it. But John had other resources, contacts to reach by phone and email, and an internet to search that he was gradually becoming more comfortable with. He had dug up some details, both good and bad, about this thing called Black Sky, but thus far nothing he had discovered had led him to a means of subverting this particular ‘threat’ or even containing it.

Logan might be right. Killing the child host, if that was even possible, might be their only option. Murdock was not going to like that one little bit.

In the alcove of the hotel restaurant the hostess directed John too, Murdock was already seated, his hands cupped around a glass of ice water, his head cocked slightly as if he was listening to something. Probably everything, John mused, when the man’s face turned towards him with a nearly perceptible smile. The man’s perceptiveness was a bit too creepy for John’s liking, but he did have to respect him for making the most of the hand fate had given him. Murdock had certainly done that with a better attitude than John had.

“You didn’t bring Logan.”

“I thought he was with you.” John sank onto the bench on the opposite side of the table, assuming that one of them would need to slide to the middle position once the mutant arrived but for the moment refusing to be that man.

“We conducted our investigations separately.”

“Cover more ground that way.” It was good thinking, although the possibility that the blind man had missed some important clue because he had been unable to see it ate at John’s confidence in how this undertaking was going to proceed. “You find anything?”

“No.”

John almost muttered something insensitive but Logan arrived and edged John towards the middle by choosing to sit on the same side. John scowled as he slid into the middle and only bit back his words because Logan spoke first.

“Me either. At least…not exactly. Found two separate factions…headquarters maybe…of Yakuza holed up in Havensport. One near the dock, one to the far west of downtown. At least a dozen warehouses and buildings…abandoned or otherwise…scattered about town. I didn’t dig too deep into their uses yet…though the cover of darkness would be better for that. Looks like they’ve been buying up properties for awhile.”

“Under the guise of holding companies,” Matt agreed. “Any indication what they’re doing with them?”

“I thought you found nothing about…” protested John.

“About Black Sky…about whether he’s still here…moved elsewhere…” Whether the sources he had tapped were being truthful, whether they knew about Black Sky, what it was, they did not seem to be aware of its existence in the area. Digging deeper was going to entail knocking heads, something Matt would feel safer doing after the sun set.

He continued. “But it wasn’t easy to trace an indigenous Japanese sub-culture, nor to locate those tracts because of it.” Being able to gauge a personal’s truthfulness by the sound of the heart, their breathing, and their overall state of being was definitely an advantage.

“I put out some feelers in the real-estate realm…it won’t tell us where they might be holding the boy, but we can at least tell what they might be doing with their holdings…give us an educated guess.” The mutant summoned over the waitress, ordered more drinks, and orders were placed for dinner as well. The woman had barely stepped away from the table before Matt started again.

“Did you find anything?”

John glowered at Matt over the tipped up bottle of beer he was draining. It wasn’t whiskey, but it was a good place to start for the night. He would have liked a few moments of peace before diving into business, a chance to actually eat since he had not done so all day, but that was not about to happen. “A little…but I’m afraid you’re not going to like it…”

Logan scowled. Matt leaned forward. “Tell us.” His tone was more gently encouraging that time, less demanding than his previous question, and some of John’s tension bled out of his face and shoulders because of it. Or maybe it was an after effect of more alcohol in his blood stream. Whichever was the cause, feeling him relax eased the scowl on Logan’s face and helped Matt relax more as well.

“Like I said…a Kami is a nature spirit. There are hundreds…thousands of them maybe…in Japanese lore. I’ve come across some three hundred classifications, all with their own functions…wind, roads, rice, entryways, rivers, clouds…you name it, there’s probably a Kami for it. Kami possess both positive and negative traits…like anything else in nature…part of the interconnecting energy of the universe or some such. They can nurture and they can destroy. They’re considered to be manifestations of what mankind should strive to be. Normally they’re hidden from the world, dwelling in a mirror plane of existence, dwelling in sacred places where believers go to offer ritual appeasements to seek favor and blessing…or something darker.”

“So how did one of these Kami end up in a boy?” Logan grunted, barely finishing the question when the waitress arrived with drinks and Matt’s soup and salad. Surely, the mutant thought, that man needed more sustenance than that. Logan would starve to death on soup and salad.

“That’s a bit more vague. From what I’ve been able to trace out, Black Sky is the human manifestation of one Iwai-nushi-no-kami…a minor kami with unspecified origins. Seems he’s been manifesting for hundreds…maybe thousands of years…always in a child, a boy…a third son. It travels through the maternal blood line…”

Matt stirred his soup as he listened. “He is not Japanese…” He knew that even without seeing the child’s face.

“He wouldn’t have to be. Not all families have enough children to create three sons…and for the possibility of a carrier to exist, there has to be at least one female child in the family…bloodlines spread out across the world, intermarry…so he could manifest in anyone, anywhere. The monks…and others…they follow the signs, looking for a third son with black eyes, the inability to speak, a crow’s foot birthmark either upon the back of the neck at the hairline or upon the heel…and he’s snatched up as soon as he’s found…”

“To turn him into a weapon? What sort of weapon?”

“Not necessarily a weapon,” John replied, waving his fork in Logan’s direction as he moved his silverware aside for the fried fish dinner he had ordered. “Iwai’s abilities run towards storms…making and controlling wind, rain, fog, clouds, lighting and so on…as well as healing injuries and illnesses in himself and others. Needless to say, these things can be used for good or bad…giving crops, destroying them, healing everyone or only those permitted by whomever controls him. He’s said to have a natural affinity for blades, can slow his body functions to go without food, water, sleep…even air…for long periods of time…and is said to fly as the ravens.” John shrugged, took a bite of fish, and continued. “The flip side of this…the kami needs to consume blood in order to survive for long inside of a human host body…”

Logan growled, “Are we talking human sacrifices?”

“I haven’t seen anything that says it has to be human...but you can bet whoever raises the child, trains him, mentors him, controls what he’s given. I’ve read references to blood sacrifices to Black Sky…to make him more powerful once he comes of age at puberty…but there’s some indication that this makes him burn out faster, destroy the host within three to six years…ten at the most…”

“Still long enough for the damage to be done…to the world around him.” The boy on the docks had not yet hit puberty, was thus still in the phases of training, but how much longer it might be before that day came was entirely up to the hand of biology.

“Exactly.”

“If he’s that powerful at puberty,” Logan asked, thinking that this kid was someone who could benefit from Storm’s guidance, if only the woman was around to provide it, “what’s to keep him from turning on his handlers?”

“Oh, that has happened, mate…and it hasn’t been pretty when it has. But if their indoctrination sticks, if sacrificing proves to be to Iwai’s liking, he’s a cooperative enough spirit, giving back to his human servants whatever it is they desire. Good harvests, pleasant weather, good health…or storms, crop failures, the rampant spread of plague, firestorms fueled by lightening…death by a boy assassin’s hand.”

“So he’s safe, as long as he hasn’t hit puberty…and we can take him out…”

Matt’s face turned towards Logan and the Wolverine knew he would be glaring if he could as he sternly said, “We are not killing a child.”

“I wouldn’t call him safe. He’s been training…with whatever powers he has, with knives and swords, since the day he left his parents. I can guarantee you that. Whoever had him first…monks or The Hand…the other side is always trying to get him back…or to destroy him if they can’t…and they were certainly training him the whole time. He might be a boy…but he’ll have strengths and skills you shouldn’t underestimate. Easier to kill…maybe…”

“It has happened before,” Matt muttered. He had tried to hold out hope that Stick had been lying to him about killing the other Black Sky; the man’s steady heart rate and breathing had indicated truthfulness, but Stick was just as skilled at controlling his own physical condition as Matt was, so it was possible that he had been lying and Matt could not tell. He had tried to cling to that, hoping the boy had lived, but the existence of this Black Sky proved otherwise.

Stick had probably used an arrow, just as he had tried to do before, and the boy, if chained as he had been when Matt had found him on the dock, would have been mostly defenseless to fend it off. Some manipulation of the wind might have succeeded, but who was to say the boy had been skilled enough for that?

Who knew if this one was.

“If not killing him, then what?” Logan asked with an annoyed growl. “Just gonna shake his hand and reason with him?”

“Maybe.” Matt’s reply was equally stubborn. With three stubborn men at the table, how any of them would come to a consensus seemed impossible. “Is there some other way?” he asked, his face tipped towards John. “If this is basically a possession…”

“Manifestation is not the same as possession, mate,” corrected John. “It’s like Jesus bloody Christ being human…or an angel appearing as a human form…not the same as a demon taking up in a body…”

“But can it be dispelled?”

“Like an exorcism?” John scowled too, a pensive, contemplative look dancing across his deeply etched features as he measured out Murdock’s request. He hadn’t considered looking at the problem from that angle. “I don’t know. I haven’t found any clues as to how to send Iwai packing…except those that involve destroying the body. Could be a way…but could be that…with body and kami being the same…it might still kill him…”

Logan swallowed the last bite of steak. “Well find out if it can be done…quickly. Once we find him, we won’t have long to move in on him…”

“And the closer we get, the more nervous The Hand is going to be about keeping him in one place.” Getting close to the boy was going to mean a lot of people getting hurt, and the more Hand operatives taken out of play, the more difficult their job would become. Not that difficult was a deal breaker for Matt. It simply meant more risk, more pain, neither of which frightened him.

Logan nodded his agreement. “We can deal with the Hand.” He was confident of success between Murdock and himself. He had to be. Failure was an outcome Havensport could not afford. “You just find some way of dismantling the boy bomb…and we’ll take care of the rest.”

“Might take me a day or two…but I’ll see what I can find. No guarantees though. Like I said…this is destroying a spirit…not just an exorcism of a possessing demon…so whatever I find, if anything…it’s probably going to get messy.”

“Messy’s our specialty.” Without seeing the movement of Logan’s head, Matt knew the man agreed. Messy, bloody, painful. But the end result was all that really mattered.

He slid towards the edge of the bench, reached for his cane, and got to his feet. “We should get to it…”

“Get to what…?”

“On a full stomach?” Logan asked with a snort. Now he knew why Murdock ate sparingly.

“Better than on an empty one.” Matt smirked and stretched one hand across the table towards John. “Thank you…anything more you can learn…can tell us…we’ll appreciate it.” And learning what he needed to know for once without having to beat someone to a pulp had been a refreshing change of pace.

“Rising darkness and all that, you know…doing my bit,” John muttered around the rim of another beer as he accepted the offered hand.

He hadn’t even started the whiskey yet.

“We’ll compare notes in the morning?”

Logan got up as well, taking the handshake only after he was on his feet. “Not too early we won’t. If I’m going to spend the night cracking skulls and taking numbers, you can be damn sure I’m gonna get some sleep afterwards…”

“Later tomorrow then.” He was going to need sleep as well, he knew. He normally did not need much, but who was to say what this night was going to bring him.

He had no idea what to expect beyond pain and blood.


	9. 9

Logan’s method of procedure was considerably different than what he understood Murdock’s to be, but tonight, at least, they were not fighting side by side for him to see it. Logan, adamantium claws and regenerative abilities afforded him little need for stealth, and so he walked into the first ‘empty’ warehouse on his list as if he belonged in that place, straight into what appeared to be an automotive body shop, a car stripping facility containing nearly a dozen high end automobiles worth a small fortune apiece.

Logan knew a few people who would have loved to get their hands on any of one of those cars, let alone an entire warehouse full of them.

He didn’t ask questions. It was obvious that no child, no Black Sky, was in this warehouse, although there was a whiff of something else in the air…cocaine he wagered, that suggested some other use for these cars beyond the parts that could be stripped from them. When guns and knives came out, and heavy wrenches and crowbars began to be flung in his direction, Logan simply did what he did best. Claws out, fists flying, he launched into the fighting rage of berserker determined to decimate every man within the warehouse.

No Hand here. Yakuza lackeys, yes, the grunts supplying those at the top with the labor resources and sellable product that would fuel the organizations many endeavors, but no one of power here, none who could prove a challenge for the Wolverine.

Phone calls made, however, alerted those in other warehouses of a threat, so that Logan’s follow up stops presented him with buildings devoid of people, equipment, and whatever product they might have contained. Neither of those, as far as Logan could tell, offered the facilities necessary to house a child, and none presented him with an adversary worthy of his skill and ability.

He went home bloody and weary, but none the worse for wear, and certainly without anything to show for it beyond a string of bodies that the police had already found and were chalking up to gang violence.

If law enforcement had not known the Yakuza was in Havensport before, they certainly did now.

Matt’s choice of targets was more deliberate and precise, a multi-level office complex in which lawyers and accountants he had visited earlier that day with ties back to Japan and known Yakuza holdings were housed. There were less men to fight, with no need to kill them, but a few strategically asked questions of his bloody victims, and the lifting of a handful of documents from desks and a cellphone one man dropped, and Matt was satisfied with his night’s work. There was no trace of Black Sky within the building, and none of those he faced that night either knew what Black Sky was or where it might be.

They had heard rumor of a great treasure, however, but were unable to describe it or reveal its location. Confident that treasure had to be Black Sky, and that pushing the right buttons with person after person regarding this treasure would eventually point him to where it was being held. Patience was a virtue, even if, at times, it was really frustrating to hold on to.

But those targets did give him a name, a revelation that led the two who spoke it to take their own lives moments after speaking it. Matt had seen such behavior before, a leader of such power and control that his followers dared not speak his name for fear of retribution. Wilson Fisk had wielded such power. This individual obviously did as well, but who it was, where they might be found, would be details to seek out another night.

It was already late, the morning not far off as his night’s endeavors concluded with another, more thorough turn upon Havensport’s docks and the rescuing of one college aged woman from a would be attacker and a man from two large-bodied Hispanic thugs for accusations of failure to pay his debts. It did not bother Matt to undertake such side tasks. Aiding those who could not fight for themselves was his chosen mission. Black Sky was important but that did not mean such other endeavors had to ignored.

Tomorrow night he would start again. Tomorrow night he would dig deeper. Tomorrow night, if the fates were with him, he would succeed.

Surrounded by books and the dim glow of a laptop screen in Rose Hall’s spacious library, John Constantine rubbed his throbbing head. Research led him from one circle into another, paths that always came back to the inevitable.

You could banish a spirit back to where it came from, but for one so fused with a human body, born into it from the moment of conception as was so often the case with the Iwai, such efforts typically involved the destruction of the host. One tale he found, however, suggested that in the case of Iwai, the Kami could jump into a suitable hose child, if another was immediately available, a child of the same bloodline, a child with the same birthmark, a child already identified and in training though without the innate skills of the kami.

If Murdock had known of another in more recent days, then what were the odds the Kami had jumped hosts? And a spirit that could jump hosts was a spirit that could, in theory, be dispelled. Discovering how that could be done would be the hard part, for John had thus far found no ritual of Japanese origin with which to banish a spirit back to its own plane.

But he did find the name of a man. A name of someone who might be able to offer direction…if only John could convince him to do so.

The Japanese guarded their secrets with care. For a man like John Constantine to get access to them was going to require considerable effort and sacrifice.

He rubbed his temples and groaned. One of these days he would really need to cut back on the drinking.

But it wouldn’t be today.


	10. 10

Creel did not know their words exactly, the language disjointed and unfamiliar despite the days he had spent listening to it. What he did understand was the gist of their argument, that someone had caused enough problems for their organization the night before that moving the boy might become necessary. The other side of that argument, that the hit on the chop-shop had nothing to do with the boy, that it had been some sort of retaliation by some local element, or the start of a turf war by those who felt the newcomers were muscling their way into the underworld segment where others already thrived.

The hit on one of the office buildings that left several men hospitalized, unable to say who had beaten them or why was but a coincidence. Those in charge, it seemed, were unconcerned about the office raid, and only marginally more concerned about the warehouse raid and loss of product and the income it would bring.

The argument was left unresolved within his hearing, but he decided to be prepared all the same. One instinct told him to become the hunter, to find the fate and eradicate it before it got any closer. The other instinct, however, that dovetailed with his instructions to protect the child and never leave him alone, was to wait for the threat to come to him, force a confrontation on his terms, not someone elses.

The boy’s black eyes were upon him, specks of blue interspersed like pinpoints of light in the night sky. Creel bowed his head. He would stay. He would protect. Not because he had been brainwashed to it, but because the boy needed him, needed someone on his side. Children deserved to be protected. Here, in this place, this child was not…or at least was only marginally so. 

He had little doubt their handlers would punish, perhaps even kill they child, if it suited them.

Creel was not going to let that happen.  
**

Though he slept, his aching body needing the opportunity to recover from the previous night’s injuries, it was a restless sleep filled with snatches of memory that continued to claw to the surface, flotsam and gypsum that pulled him in the direction of the home he had known his entire life. A city boy, one who had been no further from Hell’s Kitchen then Columbia University Law School, his subconscious ached to go back to it, leave these unfamiliar streets, unfamiliar people behind. Though they weren’t his people, his family, he now felt an obligation to them, tethered here by the arrival of a child weapon. It was that tether that strangled him in his sleep, that kept his sleep from being the healing one he needed, resulting in several hours of wakefulness upon the marginally comfortable sofa, facing the ceiling though not actually seeing it.

The discontent eventually did settle into a state of meditation, so that by the time he became aware of an increased warmth in the room, brought on by the rising sun’s rays through the eastern window, he was at least able to move without residual pain or stiffness.

Knocking of the cleaning staff told him it was later in the morning than he had thought, nearer to noon he discovered when he pressed the button of his talking clock.

“Thirty minutes,” he said to the woman at the door, giving her a ten for her troubles. Thirty minutes have him time to quickly shower away the remnants of last night’s combat, and to dress in the freshly laundered suits that had been delivered yesterday evening during his absence. The suit and tie were as much his armor against the day as the red suit was his armor against the night, and he mused on this need for waking armor as he left the hotel on a quest for food other than hotel cuisine.

Not that it was bad…he just wanted something different…something…bad for him.

His nose led him the familiar bouquet of melted cheese, baking crust, tangy tomatoes and a host of other combinations that shouted pizza. It wasn’t something often on his menu but he wagered the longing for home was creating the craving for comfort food and an occasional indulgence was not going to kill him. Other things were likely to do that long before.

The unusual combination of roses, coconut, and sea air made his steps falter and his head cock to one side as he intended to locate the source. It was a heady fragrance growing nearer, accompanied, he quickly determined, by a powerful maternal heart beat and the three faster accompanying ones of the lives she protected. Near term…they had to be…the laboring of her breathing and pulse as she reached the street corner across from him evidence of the strain they were putting upon her body

As he stood at the pizzeria’s door, hidden by the heavy flow of men and women on lunch break, she had no reason to see him there, no reason to pick him out of the crowd. Nor did he have any reason to have singled her out in the crowd, except for those scents which had overwhelmed him, drown out the aromas of the pizza he had come in search of and made his nostrils flare as she paused again, waiting, it seemed to cross the other intersection. Trying to determine where she might be going, he listened to the sounds of the street, tiny shops, the deli he had eaten in before, and finally the theatre. Not a movie theatre, although perhaps they showed movies there as well on occasion. Previous forays past it had revealed casts in rehearsal, musicians at play, dancers swirling upon the stage.

That she disappeared into it made him smile a little…as did her hesitation at the door that cause her to look back, mindful that someone was watching her.

How she knew, he could not guess. A sixth sense, perhaps, a woman’s intuition. Did she see him there? Did she know he had been following her movement? Would she write his attention off as impossible, since his obviously blind eyes turned in her direction meant he was not seeing anything?

They were much more pleasant questions to ponder than the name he had gotten the night before that meant nothing to him, although he felt it should. He wondered if Logan was awake yet, and John? Maybe the name would mean something to them.

The phone within his pocket vibrated, startling him. Only two people, at the moment, had this number, and it was a relief to hear Logan’s name instead of the ‘unidentified’ name of the other. He was being led to a table as it rang, so he was unable to answer it before it stopped, but as soon as he was seated and had given his order to the waitress, he returned the call, hoping for some good news.

News that was less grizzly then the attack upon a chop shop and the arrest or hospitalization or retrieval of bodies from within the building.

“Tell me that wasn’t you.”

“Good morning to you too,” Logan grunted on the other end, assuming from Matt’s tone, without hearing the news broadcast, that he had heard the results of Logan’s efforts.

“I said no…”

“Sometimes shit happens, bub…” Logan wasn’t going to apologize for it. People who were stupid enough to take on a man with a metal skeleton and razor sharp claws had it coming. Clones were no secret in Havensport, and Logan was no stranger in town either. It wasn’t his fault if someone did not know who he was, what he was capable of, or failed to take caution around him. They would have been smarter to put their weapons down and surrender. “You find anything.”

“Maybe…but not anything I’d share over the phone.” Matt did not appreciate the deaths that had been involved, wished he could have prevented them, but he had to accept that those souls were on Logan’s conscience, not his. Letting the guilt consume him was not going to help now.

“Meet you at the hotel in an hour?”

“Sure, come on up to the room.” He hoped it would give him time to eat without rushing. “One hour.”

*

Curious about what Matt may have found that could not be shared over the phone, and why the man felt their connection was not safe, Logan tucked his phone into his jacket, stubbed out his cigar, and flagged Gabe over to explain his need to make a run into town, and took the bike out onto the road. Given his unwavering duty to overseeing the work crews, a responsibility he had taken on when he could have been working in the Stewart’s garage. He’d been spending most of his down time at the garage to make up for his lack of hours there, giving him little free time of his own for personal matters or relaxation, so a request for a few hours off wasn’t an issue for anyone except Logan.

He did not like feeling guilty for shirking responsibility, but it couldn’t be helped. The Hand was too much of a community threat to be ignored, and it wasn’t the sort of threat he could hand over to Caine or Riggs or any of the police force. Hell, he wasn’t even comfortable turning it over to Gamma or the Sentinels. He didn’t want anyone else in the family to be hurt or killed…and what could The Hand really do to him? As for Murdock…well, the man was a clone, no doubt, had stayed clear of the catchers thus far…and his skills would be invaluable in this fight. As much as Logan didn’t want to see it happen, the man wasn’t family, and if worse came to worse, his loss wasn’t going to devastate Tigh Ard’s fragile, recovering ecosystem.

Not that he intended to allow any harm to come to Murdock. Hell, he’d only just met the guy, and ‘no kill’ rule aside, he rather liked the man.

At the traffic signal outside of town, where there was rarely cross traffic and he frequently sped through the light regardless, Logan was forced to stop this time by the presence of a police car in the turn lane. He had no desire for a ticket, and was not in enough of a hurry to attract unwanted attention. The eyes of both officers were upon him, the knowledge making Logan’s skin prickle and crawl with wariness, but the car made it’s left turn when the light changed to green, and Logan let out a long breath of relief.

The relief was short lived however, as the car made a u-turn, came back and was soon trailing behind him with lights flashing and sirens wailing. Logan scowled, wondering if one of the lights was out on the bike, and dutifully pulled off the side of the road. He hadn’t been speeding, he knew that. Maybe, he growled when the car stopped, these were the sort who intended to harass him for not wearing a helmet.

He didn’t have time for this crap.

“You guys are a real pain in my ass,” he muttered, remaining seated on the still running bike as the officers both got out of the car.

Guns drawn.

“Shut ‘er down,” one of them shouted.

“Get off the bike,” added the other. “Hands behind your head!”

“What the…?”

“Don’t try any stupid shit or we’ll have the catchers down here…I don’t care who you are or where you belong!”

They obviously did care who he was, and knew who he was, for they approached him with a degree of caution that suggested they knew what his fists were capable of. Even when one approached behind him and twisted one arm down to cuff his wrist, it was done so with only enough force to make it happen, both clearly afraid they were about to be mauled and that he would kill them in an effort to be free.

“You’re under arrest for assault and murder…”

Logan rolled his eyes and growled, the sound enough for the first officer, gun still trained on his head, to thumb back the hammer with a flash of panic and the one behind to release his cuffed wrists and jump back hopefully far enough out of his reach to avoid being skewered.

This had to do with the warehouse. He imagined the trio of claw marks upon some of the victims, both those living and dead, was clue enough to his involvement…but it wasn’t like he was the only Wolverine in town. Hell, for all these men knew, there could have been many more.

Maybe they were arresting any Wolverine as a precaution.

No use in fighting them. Tigh Ard didn’t need the hassle of a cop-killing fugitive in the family. There were potential killers enough there.

“Don’t you leave my bike here,” he snarled as the binding officer turned off the ignition and removed the keys.

“Not your…” that officer started.

“Rob…” warned the other, pushing Logan’s head down so that he wouldn’t hit it as he was shoved into the back of the squad car. Threatening any mistreatment of that bike was going to set the otherwise compliant Wolverine on a rampage he did not want to be caught in the middle of. Promise him anything, his tone warned his partner. Anything that will keep him calm.

Rob swallowed, hearing both Logan’s rising growl and his partner’s intended warning. “We’ll get someone to bring it in,” he promised.

Glowering, not fully believing the younger partner, Logan kept his thoughts to himself as they rolled away from the bike, leaving it abandoned on the street while a tow service was called to retrieve it. There was no way he would leave it in hock. If he could not talk his way out of this predicament, or find someone who could, someone was going to have to save the bike.

He knew exactly who to call.

He resisted struggling through the initial booking process not even to offer his name or House affiliation. All that information was stored in his ID chip, which all police stations in Havensport were equipped with now due to the proliferation of clones in the county. He only spoke to ask for his one phone call, and when provided with a phone, dialed one of the few numbers he knew by heart.

He couldn’t call Tigh Ard. They did not need to worry about him or be concerned over his actions. They had enough on their plates right now.

But Rachel…yes, she was recovering…but her men could get the bike, and she could get him out of here, and no one from Tigh Ard would ever need to know. He stood at the pay phone and waited for someone to pick up the line.


	11. 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter exclusively features John Constantine.

It wasn’t the first dank, musty, foul smelling shit hole John Constantine had found himself in, and given his line of work, it wouldn’t be his last. The weight of jasmine, opium, and something akin to the burnt ozone smell after a lightning storm clung to the heavy velvet curtain as he brushed it aside to pass into the room the goons behind him were steering him towards. They had already searched him for weapons, which aside from his lighter, he was clean of. The only items he had brought with him had been confiscated, with a warning from John not to break them unless they wanted to raise their boss’s ire, but he wasn’t surprised by their growled response and the shove he’d gotten on his shoulder. He was tempted to slug the guy for that not too gentle push, but it had taken a lot of searching to relocate this one man who might be able to help him, and he wasn’t going to lose this chance with his normally notorious bad manners.

“Khensur Naoko, been a long time, mate…”

“Not long enough to warrant formalities, John Constantine…” The elderly man, wrinkled and frail enough to appear decrepit, rose from his knees before the altar of burning incense and approached with a wary, but earnest expression of warmth and familiarity. His movement belied the physical image of age, and John noted that at once. He did not know the man’s age, had never attempted to learn it. So long as his mind was sharp, his body’s gradual withering was less of a concern, and fortunately neither appeared to be in peril of failure despite the man’s living conditions and practices.

“Wasn’t sure you would still be with us.”

“It seems I am still needed here…at least by you.” He clasped one of John’s hands in one of his with a surprisingly vice-like grip and held out his other hand. “Did you bring what I asked?”

“Caviar and cigs…the good ones…as always.” He cocked his head towards the bodyguard who carried the confiscated items. Naoko took the caviar and cigarettes from the escort’s big hand, gestured for the other man to give John the other package he had brought, and then dismissed both from the room with a nod of his head. “Would you care for a drink?”

“That hundred year old scotch still around?”

Naoko grinned, shuffled back to the altar to set his treasures down, and then retrieved two glasses and the bottle in question from the liquor cabinet. John, meanwhile, surveyed his surroundings as he knelt on one of the pillows before the altar, a show of respect for his host’s beliefs and the power they contained even if John himself did not share them. The initial onslaught by the odors in the room seemed lesser now, perhaps only because he was quickly acclimating to them “Took awhile to track you down…you need to learn to stay in one place, mate.”

“I go where the winds carry me.” The empty glasses and the bottle were brought to the altar and Naoko knelt on the other pillow where he had been earlier, adjusting his robe about him before pouring the scotch.

“Don’t think it was the winds…” John knew better. Once a Shinto monk, having served for nearly all of his adult life…more than forty years, Naoko’s dabbling into darker mysteries, and a developing taste for fine foods, aged whiskey, opium and cigarettes drew him further and further out of the order. That was when John had met him, long after the man had fallen from the order he had served so long and now a student of his own order. Naoko did not see this change as a failure, as a matter of disrespect for the ancestors he had served, but rather accepted the change as a natural order of the growth of his soul. Too many questions in the universe needed answering, too many mysteries needed to be explored, too many secrets needed to be revealed. If his fellow monks would not tread those paths with him, if they would not accept the opening of those doors, then Naoko had chosen it as his personal mission to do so.

If anyone might have a suggestion about how to approach the problem of Black Sky, John was banking on Naoko. He did not know anyone else to turn to.

“The winds brought me closer to you, did they not?” the ancient man chuckled.

John had to concede that. When they had first met, it had taken John four days driving from where he had been living in order to find an expert on Japanese herbal concoctions and spells for dispelling a rankled Japanese spirit who would not leave his grandchildren alone, thanks to a mirror which had trapped his spirit in the moments after his death. That mirror now hung over Naoko’s altar, the placated spirt serving the man as informant and, John suspected, frequent companion in the man’s solitude, the price he had asked…along with caviar and cigarettes…for the powdered herbs and advice he had given John. They’d developed a rapport in their first meeting, both men having a vast wealth of knowledge about topics the other wanted to learn more about and a love for good liquor, and by their second meeting they had spent several days drinking, smoking, and talking until duty drew John away. Not long after, as John understood it, the law had taken issue with Naoko’s importing of illegal caviar and a handful of ‘dangerous’ artifacts and the old man had disappeared, collection of treasures and all.

His was the first name John had thought of when the subject of Black Sky had come up, but finding him was like a blind man finding an empty seat in a game of musical chairs.

A blind man other than Murdock, that was. John had a feeling Murdock would win such a game every time, blind or not.

That it turned out Naoko was living only four hours away was an unexpected blessing. It had given John the chance to find the requisite offerings and the chance to arrive at the man’s basement abode at a decent hour. Not that the time of day would have mattered. Naoko did not keep traditional hours. He slept when the opium hit, and was awake when it wore off, sometimes for days on end, and after the pre-dawn phone call, Naoko had known he was coming.

He took a swallow of the delightfully burning liquid, appreciating now that he’d not had a drink since hitting the road in the early hours of the morning. It made the sweetness of this elixir that much better. “You weren’t easy to find…”

“It was important for you to do so.” If it wasn’t, John would not have made the effort. “What can I help you with, John?” He poured them both a second glass of scotch.

“I need to know how to put Burakkusukai back into the proverbial bottle.”

Naoko scowled, the action stretching the wrinkles of his face. “It is here?”

“Not entirely sure where it is…my associates are looking for it now…but it came into Havensport, along with some folks called The Hand…”

Setting the glass of scotch on the altar, Naoko busied himself by replacing several sticks of incense that had burned out since just before John’s arrival. The man’s opium pipe gave off a small smoky wisp but whatever opium remained was ignored now. “The Hand is not something you want to take on, John…men such as you and I…”

“Oh, I’m not. Trust me, mate…I don’t have a death wish.” Okay, maybe he did, but not at the hand of mystical ninja assassins. “I’ve a couple of mates taking care of that end, like I said; they can handle themselves.” He still wasn’t sure how Murdock would manage, but Logan trusted his skills, so John was forced to do so as well. “It’s Black Sky that I’m focusing on. We’d rather not kill a kid if we can help it…but if it comes to that…” John shrugged. “I’ve been researching all my usual sources, but there’s nothing about how to dispel…or destroy…a Kami…short of killing the boy. Figured if there’s any way at all…you’d know it…or know where to point me to find out.”

“Is he fulfilled in his power?”

“He hasn’t hit maturity, if that’s what you mean…not as far as we could ascertain. I wasn’t there…didn’t see him…but my friends say he hasn’t.” John paused to grab the other item he had been carrying. “The previous one…I’m told…was killed recently…and this boy is about ten…so from what I have read about the Iwai, this one wasn’t born with it…was instead infused with it more recently. If this Iwai can possess a body, there must be a way to drive it out…”

“Any efforts made could destroy the temple as well as the spirit…”

“Already warned them of that…and believe me, destroying anything isn’t what we want.”

“What do you want?”

John emptied his glass. Naoko refilled it with no effort to protest from John. “To get a deadly weapon out of the hands of some very bad people. Trap the spirit maybe…prevent it from being used again…save the boy…stop a war.”

“Save the world…” Naoko chuckled.

“Yeah…you know,” he took another drink, “the usual things.” John neither saw himself as hero nor savior, only as a man with a particular set of skills that could be used to benefit others while perhaps saving his own soul from damnation.

“I will need to study on this briefly…and pray on it…”

“Not too long I hope…I don’t want them to go up against this thing before I get back to do my part.”

“A rush to advice could condemn you all…”

“I’m already damned…nothing you can do about that, mate.”

“Perhaps not. But I will not condemn you to the sort of horrifying end you’re all likely to meet if you fail.” Their failure would be a precursor to a global catastrophe; Naoko could take no chances with advice. “Stay…I will endeavor to have answers for you by sundown.”

If staying meant finishing off the bottle of scotch, John was all for that. “I’ll wait then.”

“If you wish to call your companions, let them know your agenda, you will need to do so from outside…No cell service in here.”

That made John wonder where Naolko had been when he had called to answer the phone on the second ring. He shook his head to the question. “They have their hands full,” he muttered. Truth was, he hadn’t told anyone where he had gone or why; he’d rather deal with the fallout when he got back, hoping that fallout would be tempered by whatever good news he was able to bring back, then to listen to Logan swear at him over the phone or come charging here on his bike to drag him back to Havensport. “If I can be of any help…and I brought you this…for your troubles…”

Naoko opened the small, light box, it’s sturdy sides adorned with cloth wrappings, a tiny shard of shell used as a pin to keep the lid closed. Within the box, nestled in a silk cushion to protect its polished service, a pale green stone, similar in appearance to a pearl but nearly the size of a golf ball, glistened wet like a freshly removed eye. He removed the stone with two fingers and held it up for inspection to the candlelight’s glow. He smiled appreciatively, closed his fist around the stone, and after holding it that way for several moments, his hand lingering above the flame’s heat near enough to add the smell singeing flesh to the room, he put the stone back into its box with the expected degree of reverence.

“A Tide Jewel…”

“Was lucky to find that…been holding onto it for awhile for you.” If their paths had never crossed again, John would have been more than happy to hold on to that little treasure of Japanese lore himself in the hopes of finding the others and combining their powers. Knowing it was better off in Naoko’s possession, the man respecting a relic of his heritage, it was the perfect offering for the sort of help John was seeking, even if Naoko failed to find him an answer.

Naoko understood all of this and nodded his head in gratitude. “Take your rest here, John…out of the sun and the winds of care. When you awaken, I will endeavor to have that which you seek.”

“Thanks, mate.” After a night without sleep, too much alcohol, and now the residual fumes of opium filling his lungs in the fragrant air, John was suddenly too ready to sleep. He half wondered, as he slid down amidst the collection of cushions and pillows in front of the altar, if the scotch had been drugged. With the pleasant feeling that enveloped him, he was beyond rationally caring if that was the case or not.


	12. 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my friend Ruthie for writing Rachel Stephens, Martin Riggs, and Roger Murtaugh. Ruthie's parts are in italics.

_"Tony? Is that you?" Kim happened to be passing through the hall on the way to the kitchen when the phone rang. She picked it up on its second ring, hoping it was Tony. He promised he would call her and as the hours passed she grew more worried. There was no way she was going to her father with her fears, at least not yet. Besides she was always told to give it at least a day before alerting officials. It was 48 hours for a civilian but for a CTU agent they halved that time._

_Kim gripped the handset, her knuckles showing white as she waited for the caller to identify themselves._

"Kim." Logan knew her voice, though he didn't know her well. Bauer's daughter was a good egg. "Logan. Everything okay? I need to speak with Rachel. It's important." The tension in the woman's voice made him wonder if something was wrong with Rachel.

_"Oh, hey Logan," Kim relaxed, but only slightly. The fact it wasn't Tony and the fact Logan had said it was urgent didn't help much to calm her nerves. "I was expecting Tony to ring... I'll get Rachel for you...wait just a moment..." She lay the handset down on the table and went to call Rachel who was busy in the pool with her physiotherapist and Derek who was overseeing the session. He didn't want her to push herself too far. Knowing her frustration to get out of the wheelchair and be independent he knew she would likely cause herself an injury the way she was bulldozing through her sessions._

_Kim stopped at the side of the pool. She waited for Rachel to finish the set of exercises she was currently doing before Kim interrupted. "Sorry to disturb, Rach, but there's a call for you."_

_"Tell whoever it is to call back, Rachel's in the middle of her physio," Derek ordered._

_"I would, but it's Logan and he said it was urgent." Kim replied curtly, not appreciating Derek sharp tone._

_"Help me get out of here!" Rachel said suddenly._

_"Rachel, it's not..." Derek started but Rachel ignored his warning._

_"Derek, I need to take this call..."_

_Both the therapist and Derek helped Rachel out of the pool on her instruction and wrapped her robe around her before helping her into the chair. Derek wheeled her to the phone in her room; she picked up the phone._

_"Got it..." Rachel said as Kim placed her the handset down on the phone in the hall._

_Now that they had privacy, Rachel addresses Logan, "Hey baby, what's wrong?"_

“Sorry if I interrupted you at something.” He assumed he must have, given her delay in getting to the phone. “I didn’t know who else to call.” One of the calls he should have made was to a number he had not yet memorized. He was going to have to get her to make that call for him. He sounded a little sheepish; he’d been in jail before, but never since he and Rachel had met…and the reason why wasn’t going to be an easy one to explain…and would not be made over the phone.

_"Anything to interrupt my physio session is a good enough reason," Rachel chuckled. She was only half joking. The quicker she could get back on her feet the better, however, an urgent call from Logan must mean he was in trouble. By the sounds of it, it was trouble since he'd called her and not his own family. "Tell me what's the matter? You know you can always call me, whenever." She'd drop everything for him. The amount of scrapes he'd helped her through, she owed him big time._

He inhaled long and slow, giving the officer who stood nearby a harsh glare when the man tried to hurry him, then released the breath just as slowly before saying, “Two things…bail money…and for you to get hold of my lawyer.” Murdock damn well better represent him in all of this. It was his unconscious ass on the docks that had brought Logan into this to begin with.

_"You're in jail? What the fuck!" Rachel gasped at the news. "Sorry, ya don't need that from me. How much is bail?" There was no hesitation whether or not she should be the one bailing him out. Of course she would. He didn't need to ask twice. "Just give me the details..." She assumed Lindsey would be his lawyer. "I'll be there as soon as I can."_

_Her hair was dry since she's been wearing a swimming cap. All she needed was to dress and have someone take her to where he was. Riggs was her best choice. He was a cop and knew more about this kind of stuff than she did. He also might have some sway, depending on how serious the situation, to get the police who'd arrested Logan to lower the charge._

“I don’t know yet…they haven’t gotten that far…I imagine Murdock will have to iron that out when he gets here. I don’t have his number…well it’s in my cell phone, but you know…” She couldn’t see his eye roll, but he knew she’d picture it. “He’s staying in the Hilton North…corner suite…1203…” Not many could afford that, and Logan had yet to learn anything about Murdock had come to be there. “You’ll need to swing by and pick him up…he should be there…he doesn’t drive…”

_"Sure no problem..." Rachel said like it was nothing. Just another trip to the store. "I'll see you soon..." she promised. "And Logan,” she paused, "Hang in there, okay baby?" She didn't know what kind of treatment they were giving him. What if they tried to rough him up a bit? He wouldn't take to that too kindly, and then what? They'd be charging him for murdering a police officer...or two... or three... Oh God, she needed to get there fast. Her imagination wasn't doing her any favors. "I love you..." she said softly before hanging up. Maybe if he could hold on to that thought it would help him sit tight until they arrived. She didn't ask who this Murdock fella was. She hadn't heard the name before. She should have asked what his involvement was in all this. However, if he had anything to do with landing Logan in jail he was going to have a lot of answering to do._

_The next item on the list was to get dressed properly and fill Riggs in on everything going on. He'd know what to do. She also had to call this Murdock guy._

_There was no real easy way to explain to someone you needed a lift to the local PD to get bail someone out of jail. Especially when that someone was Logan. Although the two got along, it didn't fill her cop with a huge amount of confidence._

_"It's probably something totally innocent like a speeding ticket, and they saw him as a threat... perhaps tried to make out he attacked one of them... you know what co...some people are like..."_

_Riggs lifted his brow incredulously. He didn't have to say anything for her to realise she'd over stepped her mark._

_"Let's just get down there... see what they're saying... you called this guy yet?" He asked._

_"Just about to..." Rachel said._

_"Welcome on then..." Riggs urged, helping her into her clothes, he lifted the reciever and handed it to her._

_The receptionist put her straight through to the room number 1203, with less adversity than expected. Rachel tapped the table, waiting for the phone to pick up, feeling nervous for the first time since Logan's call._

The mutant was late. Not that Matt thought of him as such, merely a man with extraordinary gifts, just as Matt had been given. Different gifts, but extraordinary all the same. Having yet to witness anything like gridlock in Havensport, he supposed it was possible that there had been an accident somewhere along Logan’s route that had delayed him, or that some matter at the construction site where he worked had detained him. There had been no mention of a construction site between them, but the sweetness of freshly cut lumber, the heaviness of wet mortar, the tang of hot metal had been enough on the man’s skin the night of their first meeting for Matt to know what Logan did for a living. He turned on the television to listen for a traffic report that might indicate a delay and fidgeted with his phone as he waited for a call to come in.

The possibility that the Hand had intercepted him, had hurt or killed him, bubbled like thickly heated blood within his brain, refusing to still despite his efforts to meditate the agitation away. He intended to go out again, come sun down, but not until he had the opportunity to speak with Logan and John.

He should have gotten John’s number himself. He wondered now why he had not.

He tried to call Logan, but the call went straight to voicemail. Either turned off then, he presumed, or the battery had gone dead. He pushed the button to disconnect the call, when it rang again, not the usual undisclosed number, but something else, a number he did not recognize and cut off before it finished.

“Hello?” he said, a little anxious that someone else had gotten his number, though trying to remind himself that maybe it was Logan’s home number. Maybe there was a perfectly good explanation for this unknown caller. “Murdock speaking…can I help you?” He frowned to himself. Why did he sound so damned business-like?

_"Hello...I... My name's Rachel Stephens..." The last thing she wanted was to sound like a sales person and have the phone hung up on her. She needed to get straight to the point. "I'm a friend of Logan's. He asked me to call you, told me you could help him?" Rachel wasn't sure how he could help Logan. After all, he didn't specify much. He'd asked her to call his lawyer, which she'd assumed was Lindsey, but wouldn't he just say Lindsey's name, instead of referring to him by title. After all, Rachel knew him. She didn't know this guy and for all she knew she could be calling some weirdo with a fetish for fucking goats. "We need to be quick though, so please... tell me you can help..." Rachel said, sounding desperate now. Trying hard to keep the panic out of her voice until now, she'd forgotten to tell the stranger exactly why Logan needed his help._

“Where is he? How can I help?” He heard her distress, in the quaver of her voice and her breathing, but she hadn’t said enough to give him any useful information. “Has there been an accident?” That was silly…the man’s regenerative abilities were off the chart. Matt had not seen them in action, but he had sensed that in the peculiarity of the man’s aura.

He was already looking for his cane and his jacket as he held the phone between his cheek and shoulder.

_"Sorry... I thought I'd told you... he's in jail." Rachel said bluntly as if stating the obvious, which of course, it was not. "We're on our way there now, we can come and get you... I don't know exactly what your connection is to Logan, but he asked for you specifically..." Rachel added, "We'll be there..." she paused and glanced up at Riggs. He signaled with his hands a number. She nodded and continued to address Murdock. "Twenty minutes... can you meet us in the lobby?" She asked, thinking it would be quicker than running (or rather wheeling in her case) around the hotel trying to locate his room._

“I’ll meet you at the curb.”

If Logan was in jail, then Matt had a pretty good idea why. He had to switch into legal representative mode, but so long as there wasn’t any direct evidence against the other man, he felt confident he could get him out on bail at least.

“Don’t worry, Miss Stephens…we’ll get him out of there.”

But the rest of his crusade against The Hand, he realized, might well be a solitary one.

_"Thank you..." For a moment, she felt reassured by his words. She wasn't sure whether it was Murdock himself or the knowledge that together they were helping someone she loved. Maybe a mixture of the two. "See you soon..." she said placing down the handset. She pursed her lips together, then glanced up at Riggs and nodded, "Let's go."_

_A little less than twenty minutes and Rachel and Riggs were pulling up outside. There were a few people walking in and out of the hotel and Rachel wondered whom they were looking for. She had never seen Mr. Murdock before and had no idea what to expect._

_The only thing Logan had mentioned was that he didn't drive, which Rachel thought was odd. Everyone drove in Havensport. It wasn't such an easy city to get around with everything being so spread apart. You didn't drive unless you were disabled, like she was at that moment in time, or blind..._

_Just at that moment Rachel heard the back door open, she glanced around to see a white cane. Her jaw dropped open._

“Ms. Stephens.” The voices in the car as it approached, the woman speaking to the driver, told him this had to be the right car. He slid inside and offered his hand, deciding upon wasting no time in small talk from the sidewalk. “Matt Murdock. Did Logan say what he’s been arrested for?” Despite his gut-sinking suspicions, he was hoping the arrest was for something much less serious than murder.” With the cane between his knees, he closed the car door with his other hand, smiling at her to increase her reassurance.

_"Uh, hi,"'Rachel answered once again surprised by the man climbing into their car._

_Before Rachel answered his questions she made introductions_

_And shook his proffered hand._

_"Matt... Mind if I call you Matt? This is Riggs..."_

_"Martin, I go by either..." Riggs said interrupting Rachel. He was about to salute the man and caught himself realising it would be futile. What's the point saluting a blind man?_

_Out of the corner of his mouth, he whispered to Rachel "stop staring."_

_She couldn't help it._

_"Obviously, I'm Rachel...Stephens..." She still found herself staring as Riggs pulled away from the curb and set off on course towards the precinct._

_"Logan didn't tell us much," Rachel finally said in answer to his question. He didn't tell me you are blind either, Rachel added in thought._

Used to being stared at, though he could not see it himself, he pretended he did not hear Riggs’ comment and kept his reassuring smile in place. “Well, it would have helped me to know any preparations beforehand…but I’ve worked on shorter notice before. I presume there will be bail involved…” Although if he was being charged with murder, as Matt feared, bail might be a high one. He would do his best to talk the judge down. “As long as it’s not serious, and we can get him before a judge this afternoon, he won’t have to stay overnight. That’s what I’m aiming for, at least.”

_So Matt was his lawyer. Rachel still thought it strange how Logan had not contacted Lindsey, who was after all, his family._

_"We appreciate anything you can do for him. Also I have the bond money, whatever it is... I'll put it up..." She was serious when she said she would do anything for Logan. He may not be one of her guys, but like Jack Bauer, he was still family to her and would continue to treat him likewise, whatever it was they were accusing him of; she'd stick by him._

_"If I can do anything," Riggs said finally, "Just say the word. I'm a cop. I may have some sway, not much since I’ve been out of the country for some time, but if there's something I can do..." He was doing this for Rachel. Knowing how important Logan was to her, and the fact she'd been sick. She didn't need any more shit piled on her plate...stress wasn't good for someone in her position. He figured it might hinder her healing process and he wasn't about to add to that. So whatever he could do to help keep her less worried, less...stressed, he was willing to do. However, he hoped for her sake it was just a case of a parking ticket Logan had refused to pay. Hell he'd had enough of those in his canon days._

“He was on his way to see me…so his bike must be…somewhere.” His face turned towards Riggs. “You might want to see about getting it back.” Even if Matt could do it, he didn’t know how to drive one and no one was going to let a blind man try. Riggs would probably even have some idea where it would have been taken and what was necessary to retrieve it. “We’ll have to talk to him…see what the charges are. I’ll talk with the arresting officers, get the files, if you want to speak with him first, Ms. Stephens…” Assuming Logan would talk to her. He obviously trusted her to call her in on this, but that did not mean he’s want to talk about the charges.

_She nodded, then suddenly realizing he wouldn't see that nod, she backed it up with an answer. "Yes, that would be good, if I could get to see him."_

_"I know a couple of the guys who I used to work closely with. I'll see what I can do about retrieving his bike." Even if he had to go and find himself._

_Assuming his old partner was still there; he'd to talk with him, see if he could get the down-low on what they were charging Logan with. Maybe he could get Murtaugh involved if he wasn't already. After all, as he saw it, the man owed him. He'd taken a bullet for him. It was a long time ago, before he went to Columbia with the family. When they were investigating some seedy characters Rachel had taken in. They'd planned to rip her off and had succeeded in doing so. Riggs had jumped in front of Roger when the gun went off and he took the bullet. Officially it had killed him, but somehow (he didn't know the details) he lived as if it had never happened at all. However, he still had the memories of that day still firmly planted deep in his mind._

“Good…I’m sure he will be asking for it. Would be nice to reassure him it’s being taken care of.”

The remainder of the short ride was silent, Matt running scenarios, laws and statutes arguments through his head. At the station, he got out of the car and waited for them to join him, hearing the distinctive sounds of a wheelchair and quickly putting hundreds of tiny clues together. The only one that still did not fit perfectly was why Logan relied on her, but that Matt intended to learn soon enough.

“Shall we?” he gestured towards the door, mentally calculating where the ramp was and turning towards it.

_Riggs pushed the wheelchair through the doors. Someone was holding it open and he thanked them, as did Rachel._

_He checked over his shoulder to see if Matt was behind. He was right there, doing much better at navigating his way than Riggs had expected. It surprised him, observing the blind man walk straight up to the desk. It was as if he could see exactly where he need to be._

_Both he and Rachel shared a look, perhaps both wondering if Matt was really blind at all, or was it just for show?_

_Riggs recalled momentarily how, in his canon days, people used to call him crazy and say that he was faking to try and draw a psycho pension. If Matt was faking, why? Riggs wondered._

_He pushed the chair to the desk and waited for Matt to get the information they needed so they could find Logan. He knew she'd be anxious to see the mutant and Riggs was anxious to find out exactly why he was here._

“I’m here to see my client…”

“Name,” said the fellow behind the desk without looking up.

“Murdock…Matthew Murdock.”

The desk sergeant’s head lifted slightly, as if in recognition, but he grunted and corrected, “Client’s name,” as if the lawyer should have known what he meant. Matt had the impression that the sergeant had been through this same routine hundreds of times before, always with the same results, without ever trying to clarify what he meant the first time.

“Logan…” He glanced at Rachel, realizing he had never gotten the man’s full name. Surely she knew what it was…and how many Logan’s could be held in a relatively small precinct office like this?

_"It's James Logan," Rachel offered realising Matt was stalling on his name. Although she knew he liked only to be addressed as Logan and dared say the claws shown themselves to anyone who tries to call him James or Jimmy, but knowing him and being as close to him as she was over the years it was one little fact about him she'd gleaned._

_“Oh…him.” There was some disdain mixed with a touch of fearful awe in the words as he tapped some keys on the computer, found what he was looking for, and then turned a sign in book towards Matt. “Riggs,” he mumbled in greeting._

Matt tried not to smirk at the presumption that he could sign anything. At the moment he really wished Foggy was there with him. Foggy would have done all the signing. He casually slid the book across the counter towards Rachel. “I’d like an interview room to speak with my client…and to see the charges against him…”

“I can get you his file…let me see if there’s a room available.”

_"Sergeant," Riggs nodded. He signed his name in the book after Rachel signed her own and Matts'. He couldn't remember the person’s name. He must be new and was mistaking him for the other Riggs in the community. Those who knew the characters well, knew enough to be able to be able to pick out their subtle differences, like being able to separate identical twins. Riggs didn't ask if Murtaugh was around. He'd find out for himself and, he knew, of course it would be identifying himself which he didn't want to do yet. At least not until he knew more about the situation._

_When the Sergeant disappeared from the desk to find a room for Matt, Riggs turned to address them both. “While you see Logan, I'm gonna have a walk about, see who around and find as much details as I can on the situation, you gonna be alright babe?"_

_"Aren't I always?" She grinned._

_"Course you are," he winked and planted a kiss on her head before the Sergeant returned._

_"What about you, Matt? You gonna be okay? For some reason Riggs didn't feel he needed to worry as much as maybe he should a blind man._

“We’ll be fine.” He had to be careful, keep up the charade here, but he had lived so many years that way that it didn’t even require thought now. “Let me know if you need anything from me.”

_"I will," Riggs said. "You need the file read to you? Rachel can help with that until I get back. I shouldn't be too long." Unless they knew Matt was blind, which they did not since he'd not said anything to the desk Sergeant and the guy had neglected to notice the white cane when asking Matt to sign in, there wouldn't be any Braille help when he returned with the file._

_Speaking of which... Riggs glanced up to see the Sergeant approaching._

Without Foggy, Matt realized he was going to need to invest in a document reader. It had not occurred to him just how much of his law practice had relied on his best friend. He nodded, although he was unsure what Logan would think of her learning his business this way.

“Right this way, sir…ma’am…the prisoner will be there shortly.”

Matt nearly corrected the young man’s impertinence but decided against it. To these officers, that was all Logan was, another face, name, and number to fill their temporary cells on his way through the judicial system. He stepped behind Rachel’s chair and began pushing it through the door the officer held open after another nod to Riggs. He had this now. So long as he could get Logan out of here before the close of day, he would consider his work well done.

_"You okay pushing my chair?" Rachel asked Matt amused he seemed to be managing fairly well, considering he had no sight. She had heard that blind people often relied on their other senses to help them but Matt was doing exceptionally well. She did offer the directions, right or left as they followed the Sergeant down the corridors towards to interview room, but he didn't even seem to need that, often turning the wheelchair in the right direction before she'd uttered the words._

_Once they arrived in the room, the Sergeant left them alone while they waited for Logan to arrive._

“Do you want to sit at the table, or stay in the chair…can I help you…?” The door closed behind them as he took the briefcase she had been holding for him and placed it on the table. “And do you mind being my note taker…if Logan has no objections to your presence while we discuss his case?” He was listening to the sounds in the room, tiny details that no one else was likely to notice. Something was pricking his nerves, an unsettling hum that was taking too long to identify, and he didn’t like it.

_"I can stay in the chair, if you can just push me up to the table, thank you...there's a chair there, are you okay to move it?" Rachel waited while they got settled before answering his next question. "Of course I'll be your note taker..." She didn't think Logan would mind. She knew pretty much all his secrets anyway. All but this one._

_She noticed a slight frown upon his face and wondered what was wrong. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe he just didn't feel comfortable in this environment._

_If she'd still be a guide maybe she'd have felt it too. Whatever it was. However since her Guide had moved to Abby her cousin, there was nothing she could do to try and get a sense of what was going through his mind except guess. All they could do now was wait for Logan. She thought about taking a peak in his file to see what his charges were. However, she decided against it, not wanting to judge before she heard Logan's side of the story._

“I…” This time when his frowned deepened, he took off his red tinted glasses and rubbed his eyes. “This would not do. He reached the door, muttering, “I’ll be right back…” just as it swung open for the guards to push Logan into the room. Matt barely had the opportunity to step back out of the way.

“Murdock…”

“Both of you…stay here, you two…” he scowled at the officers, “Uncuff my client and come with me.”

The officers shrugged, use to leaving prisoners alone with visitors though never ones of this…strength. But there were officers stationed right outside the door as well, and a buzzer on the wall for the woman to summon help, if she needed it. Judging by the stricken way in which Logan looked at Rachel, however, they didn’t think there would be any violence today.

*

_Riggs located quickly what he was looking for. He quietly creeped up on the older cop. "You're under arrest..." he whispered from behind._

_Murtaugh swung round, using a martial arts maneuver. He'd learned a trick or two since knowing Riggs and managed to put the lethal weapon down, at least on one knee. "I still got it..." he boasted in a sing song voice._

_Laughing out loud, Riggs got up, catching Roger's offered hand to assist him and the two old partners hugged. "Shit, Riggs... I didn't think I was gonna hear from you again... why didn't ya call, man?"_

_"Ya know...busy with life... stuff...after everything."_

_"Bullshit... we were partners...." Roger waved his hand dismissively. "Ya should've called."_

_"Yeah well I'm here now... so what's cooking?" Riggs asked with a shrug. It didn't matter now. In the grand scheme of things, there were bigger fish to fry._

_"You know, putting those mother fuckers behind bars one at a time... or trying to," Roger replied. "Hey, I heard about Rachel... she okay?"_

_Riggs should've known it would come up at some point. He wondered how long it would be, never figuring it would five minutes before Roger brought up something so pertinent to Riggs._

_The younger cop shrugged, trying not to make a big deal of it. “She’s strong…” he said as if that answered all Roger’s questions, and then changed the subject adding a question of his own. “Any particular mother fucker?”_

_“Got some guy in as it happens… needs to be registered as the new lethal weapon. Brought him in early this morning. Made the arrest myself. Chop shop full of bodies… and not car parts… I mean real living, breathing… now mostly dead meat...slaughtered them with knives. No one knows what he’s done with the weapons but we’ll find them.”_

_No you won’t, Riggs thought shaking his head. This was not what he wanted, nor needed, to hear. “Shit.”_

_“What’s wrong?”_

_“God Roger… I really wish you hadn’t made that arrest, cause now it’s gonna make what I’m about to ask so much harder.”_

_“Just say it, Riggs.”_

_“That lethal weapon you brought in… he’s… put it this way he’s a friend.”_

_Roger frowned and shook his head. “Him? No..not possible.”_

_“Sorry, Rog… but it’s true… he’s sorta… well let’s just say he and Rachel go way back and she’s all ready to bail him out, so whatever it is you think you’ve got on him… help me make it easier on the guy.”_

_“But his DNA is all over the shop…”_

_“That might be the case, but he’s not what ya think he is… he’s not one of the dirtbags you’re gunning for. Those are probably being scraped off the ground as we speak. Look, the guy has his lawyer and Rachel in there now as we speak… making a case for himself. Please, do me this solid and I promise I’ll bring you the real bad guys… I mean some real bonified mean mother fuckers who deserve going behind bars…what d’ya say Cochise...”_

_Roger shook his head, wondering where he’d taken leave of his senses...He thought he’d left all this dodgy shit behind with Riggs gone, but now he was, once again, elbows deep in the excrement._

_“Okay, okay...I’ll see what I can do, but I’m not making any promises.” Roger held up his hands in surrender. “Just promise me whatever shit this is, you’ll be careful.”_

_“Aren’t I always?” Riggs winked flashing his trademark grin._

_“No Riggs… that’s kinda my point.” Roger replied picking up an apple from his desk. He turned it around a few times in his hand._

_“Hey, one more favour.”_

_“Of course…there had to be something more…”_

_“There was a bike your guy was riding when you pulled him… where is it?”_

_“It was taken in… gonna be impounded.”_

_“I need it released. I’ll get Tio to pick it up…” Riggs patted Roger and shook the man’s hand. “Ah, it’s good to be home.” Riggs took the apple from Roger and took a bite out of it._

_“Hey, that was my lunch.”_

_“Like I said, good to be home. See ya soon… Rog…” Riggs walked away, with the apple taking the occasional bite._

_“Eh eh, Riggs… you owe me some bad mother fuckers.” Roger called out after him, “And an apple…” he added and sat on the corner of his desk shaking his head, wondering why he got out of bed this morning. “I’m too old for this shit...” he muttered._

*

Hands finally free, Logan sat across the table, rubbing his wrists, reluctant to look her in the eye, wondering where the hell Murdock was going. If this was some ploy to give Rachel time alone with him, Logan didn’t know whether to throttle him or thank him.

“Hey.” He hadn’t actually thought she would come to visit him, but he should have realized the request for bail money would come with this particular string attached.

_Rachel didn't know whether to slap him or hug home. Since she could do neither, she settled for a "Hey," in return and offered a sad smile. "What the hell is going on?" she asked seeing the way the police had man handled him into the room with her and the way Matt looked when he called the officers outside the room. She reached across the table and took his hands in hers, using her thumbs to stroke the marks the cuffs had left on his wrists._

_She dare not look at his file, still needing to hear his version of the story before she made any judgement. It must be serious. She knew that much._

“You seen the news today?” He didn’t know if his arrest had been reported, but the slaughter at the chop-shop certainly had been. His hands turned so that they lay face up in order to close around hers. At least he’d know how much she knew by whether or not she’d seen the morning’s news.

_"Yeah but what's that got to do with you?" Rachel asked. There had been quite a few bad reports around Havensport... there was always something going on... whether it be gang related crimes, or politics...there almost always was bad something going on, although it rarely affected their community...Havensport was a city with problems just like any other city... and Rachel failed to connect the dots. Maybe because she couldn't see how it could relate to Logan. He wasn't an angel by far and he had done some things he wasn't proud of in his past but since he'd lived in Havensport as a clone, he kept pretty much to himself and his nose clean. He worked hard and looked after his family... it didn't make sense at all. Then something clicked, but the way the police were treating Logan, the way they'd regarded her before they left the room and the way Matt had been acting, although she didn't know the man well enough to say what was normal for him... she just had this gut feeling. "Logan.... did you kill someone..." her voice lowered to a whispered as if she was scared to say it out loud._

Outside of the room, Matt made his demands clear. The illegal listening device present in the interview room was to be shut off and, after he and Logan finished, removed, or he would report its existence to every judge and IAB officer he could find. He did not know if the bugs had been used for previous prisoners or if they were newly planted in the hopes of learning information to use against the mutant clone they housed. From the quickened heartrates and breathing to the nervous fidgeting and glances he sensed being hurled about him, those who knew about it, the majority of the on-duty staff it seemed, were surprised that this blind man had discovered it.

By the time he returned to the interview room, the faint buzzing hiss was gone. They had their privacy at last.

“Self-defense,” he muttered, eyes lifting to note Murdock’s return.

“It’s safe to talk now. They can’t hear us.” Matt would know if they were being spied upon.

“Well it was,” Logan huffed. That he had brazenly barged into the chop shop looking for a fight was beside the point…as was the fact that there had been little likelihood that he’d be killed by a bunch of auto mechanics…even ones with some degree of street fighting skill. “They charged me.”

“Start from the beginning…tell me what happened…”

Logan glanced at Rachel and the pad of paper and realized she wasn’t going anywhere. But did she want to know the truth? Did he want her to?

_Shaking her head, conflicted with confusion as to how Matt knew the cops were spying on their conversation, she figured she'd get to that later. Right now they needed to hear Logan's side of the story. They only really had a short window. It would be all over soon. They probably only had as long as Riggs was doing whatever it is he needed to do._

_When Logan hesitated, Rachel's lips quirked in a known expression. She was asking if he really thought she would be going anywhere else. It wasn't a matter of whether or not he would get the bail. If he really wanted her gone, all he had to do was insist... strongly... she would go... but she wouldn't go quietly, but she'd still come up with the bail bond. However, she felt she needed to be here, to help him. And she felt Matt needed at little bit of help too. As confident as as he appeared, there was still something about him she couldn't put her finger on. He seemed kinda...lost..._

Having gotten the answer he expected, Logan grunted with a nod and crossed his arms over his chest. “I went into this warehouse…knew it was an operating garage but not…what I saw was a chop shop…dozen or so high end cars being stripped down for parts. The men inside saw me…jumped me…self defense…”

What he didn’t say were details Matt already knew; he had gone there in the hopes of finding Black Sky, of tracking Hand’s base of operation, of putting a kink in the Yakuza’s operations in the hopes of driving them, eventually, out of Havensport. None of those were details that could be shared in court.

“I’ll read the reports later.” While out of the room he had demanded electronic copies of each document in the file to be sent to his computer which would allow him to ‘read’ them. “There’s nothing else? No other details you can remember?”

Matt was fishing; Logan knew it. But there was nothing he could tell in front of Rachel, and no details that would help Matt find the boy. He shook his head. “I didn’t stop to check who was alive and who was dead…once they were down, I got the hell out of Dodge…”

“How do you think they traced the brawl to you?”

Logan balled his fist. Any bruising and blood that had been there was gone now. “DNA I imagine,” he snorted with a shrug. “Don’t deny being there…but they came after me. I warned them not to…”

“I’ll put in a petition…get you before the judge today…get them to set bail and release you,” Matt said, getting to his feet again. He didn’t hear any falsehood in Logan’s words but he knew he wasn’t getting the whole story. Face tipped down towards Rachel, who was furiously scribbling notes, he murmured, “Did you get all that?”

_Finishing the last sentence, Rachel finally looked up at Matt, her eyes meeting Logan's for a moment. "Uh, yeah... I got it. Just one last question..." she met Logan's gaze this time. "What were you doing there to begin with?"_

_She didn't understand what had caused Logan to seek out that part of town. What was his business there? He had it so good with Tamara... it wasn't perfect but it was a far from where he'd come from and the dodgy dealings of East Havensport. Besides, he knew if he needed to he could have gone to stay with Rachel. Being in a wheelchair and prevented her from being a Mistress or stopped anyone from needing a place to stay. Hell, he'd called her now, what had prevented him from calling her before?_

“I was after parts.” Those who knew him knew that he worked with the Stewarts in their repair garage, servicing mostly bikes, small boats, snow mobiles and jet skis. Sometimes they took in bigger vehicles, cars and trucks. Logan was good with his hands and the work made him feel useful. It was a logical story, to him at least, to cover his presence in what he claimed to have thought was a repair garage. No one knew what vehicle he had taken there, at least as far as he knew, and even if they learned he’d taken the bike, there were plenty of engine pieces small enough to stuff into his pocket or strap down on the back of the bike.

As for the late hour…he worked when it suited him. The time of death, if one had been determined, was no so late to rule out a late evening pickup between businesses.

Never mind what he had really gone there in the hopes of picking up.

_Rachel wasn't convinced. Only because she knew Logan and knew when he wasn't giving her the complete truth. However, this wasn't the time or place to get the truth from him._

_To Matt, she said apologetically, "Can you give us one more minute, please?" She needed one minute with Logan before they closed the meeting and they could continue with the proceedings of getting him out on bail._

“Of course…wait here with him while I see what I can do.” He squeezed the woman’s shoulder gently before heading to the door. There he paused long enough to face back towards Logan and ask, “Does the name Yuriko Oyama mean anything to you?”

There was a twitch at the corner of Logan’s eye, a slight movement at the corners of his mouth, and despite a jump in his heart rate, there was no visible reaction to the name. “No,” he replied in a bored tone colored, to Matt’s hearing, but the barest hint of warning that this was not something he would discuss here. Whoever this person was, Logan shared history with them, enough history to warrant a more in depth discussion once Logan was free.

Matt nodded, seeming to accept the reply, and went out of the room. Once he was gone, Logan let out a breath he was unaware he had been holding. He trusted Matt, he trusted Rachel, but the possibility of details coming out to her that he did not want shared was too great when they were all in the same room.

“Sorry to drag you into this,” he muttered.

_"You're not dragging me into anything... you should know me by now, Logan... if I didn't want to be involved I wouldn't be here." She took up his hands again. "But you owe me an explanation, when this is over. I don't know what's going on and we don't have time for that now, but promise when it’s over, you'll tell me everything." With her statement she was telling Logan two things. One that she trusted he'd come out the other side and two, that she didn't believe the story he'd spun. What she didn't know was whether it had been for her benefit or Matt's. "Do you trust Matt?" she asked further._

“With the lives of everyone I love…yours included.” With his own regenerative abilities, trusting anyone with his life was a bit moot. Trusting someone else to care for those he held dear was a far more telling promise. “I can’t say more…not now…not yet…” Maybe not ever, he thought grimly, now that there was an old name in play. “But when I can…I will. Just…be careful out there…keep your eyes open and never let your guard down.” He couldn’t know that Jack Bauer had given her that same warning just days before. As far as he knew, he, Murdock and Constantine were the only players aware of the stakes they faced.

_Rachel did find it weird how Logan had almost reiterated word for word what Jack had said. "I will... you too, okay?" She wheeled her chair back and maneuvered it around the table until she was closer to him and then leaned forward, placing her hands either side of his face. "I can't lose you...we've lost too many here in Havensport. I can't lose you, too." Logan may have regenerative powers and it may be damn hard to stop him, but for those who knew how, he could be stopped. Rachel just hoped to god, whatever he was up against (and it sounded a lot bigger than a parking ticket) they hadn't learned that particular secret. She kissed him, knowing any moment they would be pulled apart again. "I'll see you on the other side," she murmured._

When Matt stepped through the door along with two officer’s, cutting off any reply Logan had intended to make, it was with a frown that, to Logan, spoke volumes.

“There’s no room on the docket until tomorrow at 10:30 a.m…and they won’t release you without the judge’s authority and bail being set…and met.” He looked apologetically in Rachel’s direction and then back at Logan. “I’m afraid you’ll have to stay overnight…”

“I’ve been in worse scrapes,” Logan grunted with a shrug. “It’s not so bad here…” So long as people left him alone and didn’t force his temper to erupt, he could manage an overnight stay. He was more concerned about Matt, out on the streets alone. Yes they had fought on their own last night, but now that blood had been spilled, things would be different. War had been declared and the players were now going to be waiting for them to strike.

“I’ll be here at 9:00…we’ll go over the case again. You’ll let me do the talking and you’ll keep your head down.”

“I’ll try…”

“You’ll do more than try if you want out on bail.”

Logan scowled and squeezed Rachel’s hands. “You and Riggs…don’t tell anyone about this, okay?” He could not let anyone at Tigh Ard know. He needed to keep this entire thing on the lowest profile available.

_As she put away the note pad and files away in the briefcase, she replied, "Of course, just do me a favor and listen to Matt..." she winked with a smile and returned the gesture, squeezing his hand, her gaze locked on his, conveying everything she needed to say in that look before Matt came and pushed her away._

_She tried to be tough, to not cry and show people she was made of much stronger stuff. But seeing Logan in that way, pulled at one too many emotional heart strings than she could handle and as soon as they were through the door, the tears began to roll. She tried to hide it. Matt was blind. If she was quiet and if he didn't ask her a question which would give her up with her quivering voice, she might just get away with it... but Riggs would know. She wouldn't be able to hide it from him._

Pushing her chair from the room as the officers cuffed Logan once more and directed him towards the locked doors at the other end of the corridor, Matt leaned over her back to say quietly in her ear, “He’ll be alright. We’ll get him out of this.” He could smell, taste, her tears upon his tongue. He did not want her to worry. Not about this at any rate. Even if Logan had killed those people, it was up to the prosecutor to prove that it was murder and not self-defense. Matt figured he should be able to get Logan out on that alone.

_Rachel swallowed her sobs, wiping away her tears. When they reached the end of the corridor and came to stop at the place they'd arranged to meet Riggs, Rachel turned her chair so she faced Matt. "Logan said he trusted you and I believed him. Don't let him down..." She paused for a moment before speaking again. "I know whatever this is... it's bigger than him and I want him to go home to his family and to me..." she said with conviction. She didn’t know how, but she knew whatever was going on, somehow they were both involved. Why else would Logan be using a stranger as his lawyer and not Lindsey?_

“Logan has family?” Of course he did. It explained both the distance the man had been keeping from this sort of chaos as well as his determination to see it through. He should have asked that detail himself, but his thoughts had been preoccupied with the fight at hand. “What can you tell me about them?” Riggs was not here yet, so they had a few moments to spare.

_Rachel wasn't sure how much she should say since Matt didn't know himself; it also meant Logan hadn't told him. However, she remembered what Logan had said about Matt, how much trusted him. "There's a lot of them... more than my family. The head, master... however you want to label it... I don't know how much you know about communities in Havensport... Logan can fill you in on that a bit more than I can in our short time... anyway, he's my brother and his wife my sister in law, also known as a Mistress...it was her party where I met Logan quite a few years ago. So you can see where a little more intricately linked than just old friends. His family consists of a varied bunch of cops, soldiers and other sorts." She wasn't sure if she should tell Matt there were vampires let alone mention the SIDs. “Us Mistress's have a penchant for helping the lost and homeless..." She wasn't sure either if she should mention Tamara's expanding predicament._

“Master? Mistress? That doesn’t sound like a family…” Truthfully, he did not know what that sounded like, or how Logan fit into such a world. “I’ve been in Havensport just over a week…so no, I do not know much about it yet.” Being blind, he had not noticed individuals with the same faces, although he had made note of many similar voices in his walks through the city.

He had yet to come across the term clone.

If there were soldiers and cops in Logan’s family, why hadn’t he brought them in on this? Perhaps for the same reason Matt had never brought others into his battles. He didn’t want anyone else getting hurt.

_"Like I said, it's a long story," Rachel said. "It's a lot to take in, but if you knew us, you'd understand it really is a family. Not a bunch of lord and ladies with their clones as slaves. I love Logan...he's not just a friend, or a boyfriend... he's family just as that guy..." she said pointing to Riggs who was now approaching them, forgetting for a moment that Matt couldn't see Riggs. "Riggs, the guy you met today, he's coming now and he's my guy..."_

Those words stuck in his head, in the back of his throat, like a too large pill to dissolve and turn bitter, eliciting a gag reflex that made no sense to Matt as he turned in the direction Rachel had pointed. Thankfully, Riggs was returning, which meant he did not have to dig for an explanation about what those words really meant, and why they made his flesh crawl to hear them.

“Did you find his bike?” he asked, letting the other matter drop for now. If anything, it was something he would look into later…when Black Sky wasn’t a threat hanging over Havensport’s head.

_"It's at the impound, sent a friend to get it..." Riggs explained. "Also had a word with my old partner. He's gonna do what he can to have the charges lowered..." Riggs spoke quietly. "Heard he can't make bail until morning.... too bad he'll be here overnight but Roger will see he's okay." Riggs placed his hand on Rachel's head and stroked her head before leaning down to press his lips against her forehead. "He'll be fine... he's been through much worse," Riggs murmured in her ear before he straightened up. "Let's get out of here....can we drop you anywhere Matt?"_

_"If you on your own for dinner you could come back to ours, share dinner with the family." She'd have to lie about where they'd found him and what he was doing there, since Logan didn't want anyone knowing his business, but it wouldn't be a massive lie, a little white one to save face._

The offer was tempting, particularly since he wanted to know more about this ‘community’ of which she had spoken, but that was not his priority right now. He shook his head. “I appreciate the offer, but no…I want to get back to the hotel and get to work on Logan’s case. I’ve got a lot to do and not many hours to get it done. I can walk if it’s out of your way.” He’d made note of the turns during the drive, the number of blocks, the length of them. It gave him a good idea of where he was and he knew how to get back to the hotel. Walking would give him the chance to clear his head, to think, to plan, but he would not turn down an offered ride.

_"We won't let you walk..." Rachel said, frowning. "That's ridiculous." Of course she figured he would be fine getting home. The way she'd seen him navigate her in the wheelchair, as if he had 20/20 vision. Still, they'd taken him there, it would be only the right thing to do to take them home._

_"You heard the lady, let's get in the car," Riggs chuckled and patted Matt's shoulder as he strode passed him, pushing the chair in front of him._

“Thank you.”

Since the car was right where Riggs had parked it upon arrival, Matt went right to it, although he used his cane to sweep his path as if he needed it, and intentionally almost bumped into someone on the way. He waited for the doors to be unlocked and took his briefcase from Rachel while Riggs got her situated in the car. Only then did Matthew climb inside. He waited until the engine was running, until the car had moved out of the lot, before speaking again.

Drawing out his cell phone, he said, “If you will give me your number, I will call you as soon as I have a bail figure.” He did not want to presume she would be at the courthouse in the morning.

_"Sure," Rachel said, rattling off her cellphone number. She did not want to give him her house number, just in case someone other than her or Riggs picked up. She wanted to be at the courthouse, but seeing Logan like that again she wasn't sure she could take it. She knew Logan would understand. She knew despite her bravery in the interview room, he would have heard her outside before he was taken away back to his cell. She knew these things because she knew him._

_"Once he's out, please before you do anything else...make sure he calls me." Rachel said._

“I will,” he promised, setting her number and name into the phone before tucking it back into his pocket. “And if I think of anything…any way that you might be able to help his case, I’ll call you.” It was the least he could do for her concern and the ride to and from the station.

He glanced towards Riggs. “I’ll tell you what I told her…watch yourselves. It isn’t safe out there. Whoever…if they’re watching him, they may have seen you both today…don’t take any chances with your safety.”

_It had been the third warning she'd received. The second this same day, only proving whatever it was they were fighting, or in search of, was really big and it scared Rachel. It also confirmed Logan and Matt were working together on something more than to do with the law. That was just maybe a hurdle._

_"Maybe you can shed a light to what's really going on?" Riggs said. "I'm a cop ya know... Logan's not dumb enough to get himself caught so easily... my ex partner said he made the arrest himself, but I saw something on his desk. I think he got a tip off..." Riggs eyed Matt through the rear view mirror, gauging Matt's reaction. His eyes hidden behind those glasses would give little away but there were other signs he'd show to let Riggs know he was on the right track._

Matt shook his head. "I can't...I don't know enough...and what I do know...we have to do this our way. The police can't deal with this...not yet. No one else needs to get hurt..."

_Riggs nodded, though he added that sentiment verbally for the benefit of Matt. "Are you really blind?" He had to ask as he pulled up outside of the hotel where they'd picked Matt up._

Matt chuckled. "Are you really driving?" He opened the car door. "I'll call you with bail...and Logan will call you as soon as he's free. If you think of anything...you've got the hotel number..."

_Point taken, Riggs rolled his eyes, "Sure and hey man... follow your own advice...Logan will need you tomorrow."_

_Rachel reached out taking Matt's hand before he got out the car. "Thank you..." she held on to it for a moment before letting go. "Speak to you tomorrow," she said and watched as he got out the car. She looked at Riggs, giving him a knowing look - not a word to the others - and let out a sigh before they pulled from away from the curb._

Matt listened to them drive away, the sound of their engine retreating a cold thing that made him frown. He would tell Logan to call her, but it might be time to make another recommendation. If what he had suggested held any truth, if there was any chance that their opposition knew where Logan was, if they chose to follow him, his family was not going to be safe if he went home, nor would Rachel's family be safe if Logan reached out to her. It might be beneficial if Logan chose to lie low until this was over.

He gauged the hour by the position of the sun, the heat on his face. There was time in the day still...time enough to get to work...before the night's real work began.


	13. 13

Exasperated with his lack of success that day with getting Logan back on the street, unsettled by the pair of terms Rachel had spoken…terms that left seeds he was determined not to fertilize with investigation until the threat of Black Sky was behind them, his mind frantically racing through the details Logan’s arrest files had provided, Matt did the only thing he could think of to ease that frustration and calm his troubled mind…he let the devil loose on the streets of Havensport to hunt the prey that had thus far eluded him. His impression of The Hand, the barely perceptible changes in Logan’s demeanor at the mention of that one name, was proof enough that this would not be an easy hunt. Like many such organizations that thrived in shadows, the trails to the ones in charge were rarely easy to find and follow, and though the lack of intel on the streets supported the possibility that the Yakuza, and The Hand, were relatively new players in town, they had already cut out a big portion of underworld to serve as the strongest element in the region. Smaller gangs, the traces of the Mexican Cartel, even smaller contingents of Irish and Bloods, and three miniscule groups of Italians and Chinese and Iranians worked the city, some residents, some feeler roots from neighboring cities who came to Havensport’s ports to buy or sell product.

The elements of each knew of the Japanese by reputation but few had direct dealings with them. From what Matt could gather as he fought first one gangster thug after another, the Yakuza was not in Havensport to make money, their chop shop, warehouses, and as he discovered, the manufacture of illegal synthetic stimulants for sale largely back in their homeland and abroad. The port, relatively small and more lax with customs and security than some larger cities had, was the draw, a draw that brought the Daredevil to the docks to intercept an incoming shipment of ingredients. With the ship empty save for a handful of security agents well trained in the martial arts, the best Matt could hope for, could manage, was to lure the men away from the cargo, incapacitate them, and set fire within the cargo container full of drugs.

It wouldn’t stop the Yakuza from making more, and there was no more time tonight to hunt down the industrial plant or the individuals who oversaw manufacturing, but without that incoming shipment, there would be no cooking tonight. Maybe for several days, a week or more if he was lucky, as it would take time for more supply to be acquired, another ship to arrive. Maybe enough time to find where Hand was hiding, to find Black Sky, to drive the Yakuza out of Havensport.

It gave him enough time tonight, at least, to return, aching and stiff, to the hotel for a shower and a few hours of sleep before he needed to be in court. He was confident he could get Logan out on bail once they actually got the case before a judge; tomorrow night they would fight together.

But where in the hell was John Constantine?

And why did the threads of masters, mistresses, and slaves haunt his dreams?


	14. 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to John Constantine

It was impossible to know how much time had passed when John finally peeled open his burning eyes to the room around him. Several times he blinked, then rubbed them with the back of one hand, but while it cleared his vision there was no relief from the burn. He was right where he remembered last being, sprawled over cushions, limbs tangled in them, the side of his face damp and sticky where sleeping with his mouth open had left a wet spot on one of the satin pillows, and though the candles had burned down to nubs upon the altar, they could have been replaced once or more already during his sleep. He didn’t remember what color any of them had been to determine if they were different. There were no windows in this subterranean room, so that it contained the haze of candle smoke, cigarettes and opium to hover thickly above him, but it might not be any thicker now than it had been when he had dozed. It might look that way simply because his sleep-blurred vision was masked by the smoke’s sting. He groaned and pushed himself into a sitting position, ignoring the straining of stiff muscles and the vile taste at the back of his throat left by the after image of scotch. Another drink would cure that, but the bottle was empty and the effort to talk through a mouthful of swollen cotton, to ask for another drink, was beyond him.

Naoko sat at the desk instead of on the floor by the altar, his back to John, ancient tomes with cracked spines and crinkly parchment scrolls spread across desk, some in a graveyard of discarded research materials beside the chair, the remainder kept neatly to one side as the monk worked methodically through them. Hearing John’s movement behind him, he gestured without one hand, without looking back at him, for John to not speak, and continued his reading quest. John struggled to his feet, shuffled to the desk to peer over Naoko’s shoulder in the hopes of viewing anything potentially useful.

The words in the dim light, faded with age, were too difficult for his blurry vision to decipher, so he trudged out of the room in search of the bathroom. There were no bodyguards to stop him, to escort him, which meant Naoko had dismissed them some time during John’s sleep. They were alone in the basement labyrinth, through which John had little desire to wander.

From the mountain of discarded books, John guessed he’d been asleep longer than twelve hours. Logan and Murdock must be wondering what the hell had happened to him, or had assumed he had bailed on their cause. Maybe he should call them…but his phone was in his coat pocket, hung over a stool in the main room, and without reception here below ground, there was little use in trying.

By the time he rejoined Naoko, his face scrubbed to the point of waking, his body relieved of the weight of processed liquor and his stomach loudly demanding something to replace the booze, Naoko had set a plate of donuts and pastries on the altar along with a pitcher of orange juice, or perhaps it had been there when John had awakened. Naoko did not appear to have budged and to be honest, John had not noticed the altar’s contents upon waking.. John would have preferred a beer, but he was not going to complain about his host’s choice of hospitality. Not when he might be this close to getting some sort of helpful, or potentially helpful, answers to the problem of Black Sky. He stretched out his legs, sat with his back against the altar and the plate of donuts on his lap, and ate while he waited for the sage to address him. After not having eaten yesterday, John suspected he would probably eat the entire dozen without interference.

“There may be something…” Naoko finally said at last, laying aside his pen with slow deliberateness and smoothing down the page upon which he had been writing with his other hand, “but it will take me some time to collect the ingredients…”

“I can help with that, mate,” offered John around a mouth full of jelly donut.

“Perhaps.” Naoko turned around to face him and motioned for the donut plate. He snatched a cream cheese filled one from the pile and then leaned against the back of his chair.

“Jugondo, as you know, is mystical power in words and names…the forming of spells for rituals and the mastery of things through words, through knowing their name. We know the name of the Kami…as you say…so that will help you; it would be useful to know the child’s name as well, but that is not crucial. Without knowing anything about the boy, it will be impossible to trace his true self through his bloodline, at least to do so in the time allotted, so you must address yourself to the kami and expect that to be enough.

“Yes, Iwai-nushi-no-kami,” John mumbled with a nod. “I already know this bit…go on, mate. I don’t have all fucking day…”

Naoko smirked but did not mention that they were now nearing the end of the next day, John having slept the night and entire day away at the foot of his altar. “As you know, there are rituals designed to vanquish monsters, to free people and objects from the possession of spirits. The kami are no mere spirits, and Iwai is powerful enough to force rebirth into human form each time a host passes, whereas most kami never cross into our realm as anything more than an ethereal form. Unusual, a strong spirit, but as it relies upon the maturity of the host to manifest completely, that does leave it vulnerable for a time. The day of Black Sky’s ascension, however…” He shook his head, not bothering to state the obvious. “I can provide you with such a ritual as may bind him…but if he has reached his powers by the time you attempt it…I cannot guarantee its results.”

“Got it…don’t wait too long…but anything is worth a try.” Rituals and spells were John’s forte. If he had the words, and whatever effects were necessary to support them, John trusted his ability to make it work…or to die trying.

“You and your…associates, will need protections. If Iwai takes offense to your efforts…if his powers are fully awakened…only the o-mamori may keep your spirits safe and cause the kami’s wrath to pass over you. There are three, you say?”

John nodded his head and put the donut plate back upon the altar to free up his hands.

“Then take these…they will keep you each on the kami’s good side.” The three colorful brocaded silk coverings, like cloth envelopes with pointed tops, secured upon a braided string, each contained a flat square of wood that John could feel with his fingers as he took them from Naoko’s hand. A protection prayer and the kami’s name would be etched upon each square, front and back, that much John knew about Japanese mysticism and magic. As long as the brocaded envelope remained closed, the power of the contained protection would remain effective, and if these seemingly innocuous items were what it took to keep Black Sky from turning on the three of them while they tried to dispel or destroy him, John would wear his twenty four hours a day until it was done.

“This…” Naoko next handed John a rolled parchment tied closed with a deep purple ribbon, a color that reminded John of backlit storm clouds, the silver thread woven through it like forks of lightning, “details the purification ritual which will give you standing and power when presenting yourselves before the kami. It is for this ritual you will be required to find certain items…once gathered and cast, it will serve as further precaution.”

“Can never be too careful, eh?” John quipped, despite the seriousness of the situation. It was his way of deflecting stress, however, and Naoko knew this, thus he did not take affront at the man’s flippancy.

“Use cold iron to bind him, chains, cuffs, locks…whatever you can find; it is the only thing which may have a chance of containing the host, if he has not already come of age. Provide a fulgarite of at least twelve inches in which to hold the storm kami…should you succeed in drawing it forth from the host. It is the only substance said capable of trapping him…”

“Fulgurite…that’s lightning glass, right?” John had seen it featured in other spells and mystical rituals, but they had been spells he had yet to try, and so he had no experience with the fragile substance.

Naoko nodded. “An unpolished one…newly drawn from the earth…as fresh as possible…”

“You don’t happen to have any lying around, mate? Know where I can find any?”

The old man shook his head. “I am no geologist or meteorologist, John,” he chuckled, though the sound was heavy with the gravity of the situation. He saw an idea spark in the exorcist’s eyes at the same time he himself considered the possibility, and unlike himself, he knew that John was just crazy enough to try such a thing. He could have warned him against such insanity, but knew that such a warning would likely only push John further along that path.

Maybe if Naoko did not speak the path aloud, John would think better of making the attempt.

“And last…” Tone deeper, voice rougher, Naoko rose from his chair, shuffled to a locked steel cabinet that John judged to originally have been used for the storage of guns, and after unfastening each of the dozen key and combination locks that sealed it closed and muttering an incantation to unbind whatever wards he had put into place upon it, removed a small sealed chest from within. “Do not use this unless there are no other options…and do not touch the stone. Never touch the stone. Any whose flesh come into contact with it, will perish…even Iwai’s host…if he is not of full power.”

“Bloody hell…what is…?”

“A piece of the Sessho-seki.”

The Killing Stone.

John let out a long, low whistle, less surprised that the mythological stone actually existed then he was by Naoko possessing a small piece of what his research suggested was a large, man-sized stone…and by the man’s entrusting him with it. Such a deadly item was best kept far away from the hands of most men, for who wouldn’t be tempted to use it to rid themselves of enemies and rivals and injurious lovers? It was no wonder Naoko had kept it in a cabinet with so many locks and protections. What else, John wondered with an involuntary shudder, might be in that cabinet.

“What will it do if he is? At full power I mean?” The wooden chest in his hands, heavier than it appeared and icy cold, vibrated with a disturbing surge of power that made John feel sick despite the layers between him and the stone. He resisted opening it, set it upon the altar, and noted at once the violent jumping of the flames. Even the fire feared this stone. That was either a very bad thing, or a potentially good one.

“There is no knowing that…it has never, to my knowledge, been used against a god…”

To the Japanese, the kami spirits were akin to gods, more god-like then the souls of men, things men aspired to be. The Killing Stone might have no effect on such a being at full power…or it might have a most devastating effect. John hoped they would not have to test that possibility.

“You will bring it back to me straight away, John…when it is no longer needed…see that I get it back, that it is placed here once more. If you cannot…you must swear to me you will destroy it.”

“Destroy it how?”

“I do not know…find a way.” The only ways John might not be able to return it would be if one or the other of them were dead. Naoko did not trust such a weapon out in the world, a weapon potentially more deadly than Black Sky, but he was trusting John with it. The responsibility of that trust was not taken lightly.

“You’ll get it back.” He didn’t swear, he didn’t promise. Those four words were good enough for them both. One hand sliding over the polished, he asked, “If we separate the kami from the boy…how do we capture it…?”

“Capture?” Naoko cocked his head. Hadn’t they already covered this ground?

“Contain…control…hold it. Saving the boy is all well and good…but the real mission here is to get this weapon out The Hand’s clutches. If we separate them…it’s just going to go find a new host, right? If we don’t contain it…or bind it to its own plane…someone, somewhere down the road is going to have to do this all over again…”

Naoko scowled. “The force have been battling one another for this for this kami’s favor for centuries; there is no reason to think…”

“No reason, mate, except that people today aren’t going to settle for rampaging diseases and failed crops. If The Hand is as bad as Murdock and Logan say they are, their plans for Black Sky go far beyond that, and I don’t think either of us,” he pointed back and forth between them, “wants that on our conscience. The best option…the only option…is to put the genie in a bottle, like I said…stopper it up and lock it away…or block it from ever coming back through.”

“Kami cannot be prevented from passage between realms…it is the nature of what they are. But…as I said…the Fulgurite will contain it…provided you have the other components of the spell…”

“That’s fragile stuff, mate…one small mishap and…” His fingers shot out, jazz hands, indicating the explosive shattering of the glassy substance. He was going to need something to house that fulgurite…and a lure. Surely his words alone weren’t going to be enough to draw a spirit free of its host. But what, he wondered, did one use to lure a Japanese storm kami? He toyed with the scroll in his hand. “I suppose I should just read this…”

“Not here…not now. An old man needs his sleep…”

Realizing he had overstayed his welcome, or perhaps had irritated the ex-Shinto monk with his talk of destroying or hobbling a spirit, John stood up, his scroll set upon the altar next to the chest so that he could put his coat back on. The thump of the phone against his thigh reminded him of the call he was going to have to make…maybe when he got outside…maybe once he got back to Havensport. Maybe he’d just see Logan at home…after he had everything he needed for this binding spell.

“Thanks mate…I owe you for all of this…” John did not like owing favors, but it was a common practice between practitioners of his ilk, and at least the favors Naoko desired were things easily acquired with the right contacts and a few high marked bills.

“The only payment I want is the Sessho-seki returned to me…and the Black Sky, once you have contained it.”

Having just bent to pick up the chest and scroll, John hesitated with visible tension in his shoulders and back. “I don’t think Murdock’s going to agree to that…and you can’t afford The Hand coming here…”

“My home is warded…”

“I found it…”

“You found it because I allowed it.” John scoffed, not believing that to be true since it had been a search of the internet and several long held contacts that had brought him here…but perhaps those contacts had known for John’s sake all along. If those people known, however, it would not be difficult for The Hand to follow the same path, and wards or not, John did not think Naoko was any match for band of mystical ninjas. “Bring them both to me…swear to it now…or you shall not make it through my doors alive.”

Forcing his disappointment off of his face, John adjusted his coat, tucked the scroll within the inner breast pocket, and fumbled for his truck keys. “I thought we were mates, mate…”

Naoko’s serious expression did not change. “This is not about friendship, John Constantine…this is about honor…tradition…culture. Those things belong to my people…they belong where one of my own can protect them from dark forces. Bring them to me, and they will never again fall into the wrong hands.”

A heaving sigh wrung from the rise and fall of John’s shoulders and he nodded. “Alright…I swear it.” He made it as far as the curtain before looking back at the withered man who seemed, for that moment, both smaller and more mighty at the same time. “I’m trusting you, Naoko…with my life…with all of this.” The least the man could do was trust him in return.

With his hands clasped before him, Naoko bowed and let John pass beyond the velvet curtain, up the steep stairs, and out of the building onto the darkening city street. It was all of the proof of trust John needed. It was all he was going to get.


	15. 15

It had been easier than expected to get Logan out on bail. Matt wanted to believe it was his arguments that the man had no violent history in Havensport, that he had extended family and friends and thus was not a flight risk, that gained them success but he had a feeling that it was the mention of that family, some power the names of Brigham-Bruce held within the region that had convinced this particular judge to release Logan on bail. Granted, the amount was steep, and Matt was not sure, when he called Rachel to request the transfer be made, that the woman would be able to afford such a hefty sum, but she came through, not only with the bail but with notice that Logan’s bike had been brought to her house as he had requested. It was the safest place until Logan could go after it, and Matt was relieved that Logan had come to that conclusion without needing it point out to him. The man’s clothes and personal effects were returned to him while Matt waited, but the two did not speak again until the taxi dropped them off at the hotel.

Logan paused outside the lobby doors, staring up at the tall structure, his scowl more predominant than usual. Matt couldn’t see it, but he could feel the shift in the man’s mood and turned back from the door to face him.

“What?”

“I can’t call her.” Matt’s failure to speak confirmed what Logan already knew, but he continued. “If they’re watching me…they’ll know I’m out soon enough…and anywhere I go, anyone I’m seen with, is at risk…including you.”

“Logan…walk with me.” There was a park across the street, and though he was reluctant to do so, given the realizations crashing around him, Logan followed Matt across the busy street into the park full of noon time runners, dining businessmen, and students on break from class. Nothing suspicious, nothing out of the ordinary, and since he believed that, between the two of them, they would notice any threat before it became unavoidable, Logan was able to relax.

It had been a long time since Logan strolled through a park.

“If they want me…they already know where I am.” Logan cocked his brow and continued to listen as Matt explained how he had come to be in Havensport, how he had come to be on the docks the night Logan had found him, the vacant space in his memories that suggested a life he had been ripped from, or that had been erased, the housing arrangements, the money he was living off of that wasn’t, as far as he could tell, his own…the cold sinking feeling he’d been carrying since last night that by remaining where he was, he was open to manipulation and constant surveillance by the people he wanted to bring down. With no money of his own, however, Matt had nowhere else to go. Logan’s presence was no more a threat to him then he was already under.

“Shoulda told me this before.”

Matt nodded once. “Yes…perhaps.” It had not seemed a particular problem before last night.

Logan patted his wallet in his jacket pocket, considering options. He wasn’t sure that the two of them holing up together was a good idea, not if they were both being hunted…but then again, having each other’s backs might be the best option they had.

Their circle of the park brought them back to the hotel, where Logan stopped at the ATM machine in the lobby. He might not have had enough for bail money, but he had enough for a room elsewhere, for food and beer to hold them throughout this battle. They could not use any of the hotels owned by the Bruce estate, and anyone looking for them would probably start looking in hotels not owned by the family…if they had drawn any lines from Logan to Tigh Ard. It made hotels out of the question.

And personally, Logan hated hotels…unless he was sharing one with a female companion. Matt was definitely not that. Taking refuge in a squat house, in a homeless shelter, in any one of a number of abandoned buildings did not sound particularly appealing either. But Logan knew a few people, knew a few places they could lie low, and when the ideal one came to mind, he smirked.

The wad of bills was taken from the machine, the maximum limit his bank would allow him to withdraw at any time, and half of it was given to Matt, who immediately began to protest.

“Consider it payment to my lawyer,” Logan grunted. “We’re gonna need money to get by on…you in particular…and at the moment I’m the only one that has it. Besides…I owe you. I’m gonna have to hit the bank if we want more…if we want to not leave a paper trail around Havensport we’re gonna need cash. I know a place where we should be able to get an apartment until this blows over.”

“I don’t know…”

They made it to the elevator, but could not speak while other guests entered and exited as the elevator made stops on the way up to the suite level. The last ones to disembark, they stepped into the empty corridor of the hotel’s top floor, both instinctively listening for danger, for any hint of others on the level who should not be there. Thankfully, the floor was clear, and there was no trace that Matt could detect of anyone having entered his room. The Do Not Disturb sign had been, it appeared, honored.

“It the best place for us…several local cops and CSI types live in the complex…and no one will look twice at us being there.” Having surmised from that discussion in the park that there was a lot about his ‘life’ that Matt Murdock did not know, and that the man might be at risk from other sources he was not even aware of, Logan thought it best not to explain the nature of that apartment complex or the residents who called it home.

“If I check out of this room…”

“Don’t have to. No one needs to know you’re not staying here. We’ll take your gear out the fire escape…or up to the roof, move it from there…so that no one needs to know you’re gone…”

“Rachel has this number. If you don’t call her, she’ll call here…”

Logan sighed. “I know…but better she not reach us then they track her down through us.”

Matt had to agree with that. He did not want anyone at risk. It was bad enough that…

“Have you heard anything from Constantine?”

“In jail?” Logan snorted. He hadn’t heard from anyone there, beyond Matt and Rachel’s visit. “He hasn’t turned up then?”

“I don’t think he has my number…and he has not called the hotel.” There was no click click of the message waiting light on the room phone, and no one at the front desk had stopped him with messages. If John had come by or tried to call, Matt didn’t know it.

“Figures…well, I’m sure he’ll surface eventually…” John had been known to disappear for days from Tigh Ard as his various research projects, and occasional exorcisms, took him elsewhere without word or warning. Not yet bound to the family in any meaningful way, he was not required to announce his comings and goings, and just because he had not told Logan his plans it did not mean he had not told someone else.

Logan would not, however, be free to question the family. Until the Black Sky threat was diffused, until The Hand was driven out of Havensport, he couldn’t go home. He couldn’t even go back to work. Frustrated about abandoning his responsibilities to the rebuilding project, Logan rubbed the back of his neck. Someone at Tigh Ard needed to know the truth…or at least some watered down version of it. But who?

“You sure this room isn’t bugged?” he muttered, suddenly more out of sorts than he had been minutes ago. He was visually scanning the room but was not seeing any signs of a bug. If Matt had detected surveillance equipment in the police interview room, Logan imagined he would be able to detect it here.

“I’m sure.” Matt had pulled his trunk and suitcase out and was shoving items back into them. His suits were back from the dry cleaners, his other clothes now laundered and returned, so there would be no delay in departing, once they decided it was clear to do so.

“Good.” Logan took a beer from the refrigerator, popped the top, and plopped onto the nearest chair, avoiding the sofa where it appeared Matt had been spending his nights. Why not the bed, the mutant wondered as he drank deep

“Now…what the hell is this about Yuriko Oyama.”

“I heard the name the other night…from some of those I interrogated…and I got the impression he’s the one in charge.”

“Not he…she,” Logan corrected. “Never known her to be in charge of anything…she’s never seemed the sort…but she’s definitely a good big of muscle to back someone up if she’s of a mind to do so. Hand is right down her alley.” He took another long swallow of beer.

“You know her then.”

“Let’s just say I’ve encountered her before…and she’s not someone you want to be messing with, bub.”

“I can take care of myself…”

Logan snorted. “I have no doubt about that, but not against someone like her.”

“Why?” Matt wasn’t a man prone to fear, and he had yet to find an opponent he couldn’t best in a fair fight.

“Because she’s like me…her skeleton’s been fortified with adamantium…she regenerates like me…and instead of three claws on each hand, she has five…from her fingertips. I only know of two ways to put her down…and since I don’t think there’s an adamantium smelting facility anywhere near here, then decapitation is the only option.” He caught Matt’s frown and said, “Knew you wouldn’t like to hear that.”

“We can’t capture her…imprison her?”

After a belch and the crushing of the beer can in his hand, Logan replied, “Jail only held me because I chose not to fight back. I coulda busted my way out of there if I wanted, but that wouldn’t have done a damn thing in our favor, so playing by the rules was the best option. Even if you found some means of containing her, something she couldn’t cut her way through, it would only be a matter of time before she found some other way free…and you’d be back where we are now. She goes by Lady Deathstrike…even if she kept the claws sheathed, the adamantium and the regenerative capacity makes her damn near invincible…unless you take her head.”

Matt continued to frown, and closed his trunk and suitcase in silence. He wasn’t afraid, of her, or of dying, but if Logan’s knowledge of this individual was accurate, then confronting her before Black Sky was defused would be a foolish suicidal mission. He had little doubt that Logan was willing to decapitate her in a fight, but Matt knew he could not. Nothing within him permitted him to go that far.

“Is that the only way to defeat you too?” He wasn’t about to fight Logan to find out.

“Far as I know. Can’t regenerate that sort of thing…but I’ve never tested the theory to find out.”

“So as far as you know, decapitation might not even stop her?”

It was Logan’s turn to frown. “Maybe…” he had to reluctantly agree. “But it would sure slow her down long enough to find some other means of dealing with her.”

“Then we find some other way upfront…”

“We don’t have time for that, Murdock…and you know it. We’ll do what we have to do…when we have to do it. I can’t make you the sort of promise you want me to make…only that I’ll try to do it your way.” He propped his feet up on the coffee table. “I don’t take any pleasure in killing…it’s not like that. I’d rather knock ‘em down and hope they stay down of their own accord…”

With the people Logan had often dealt with in the past, people determined to destroy him, it was either kill or be killed. Logan preferred the first option over the second.

“That’s good to hear.” He had known men who killed for the sport of it, the pleasure of it, or for the money it could bring them. Killing by choice. At least if a man killed when he felt he had no choice, it seemed less a blight upon his soul…but for Matt, it would always be a choice, a choice he was determined not to make.

“Think we should go out tonight? Bang a few more heads, try to find this kid?”

Matt took a bottle of beer from the refrigerator for himself; when he popped the top it ricocheted off of two walls and landed squarely in the trash bin.

“Show off,” Logan muttered.

Matt grinned. “If we go out…we go out together…and the claws stay in. Any more slashed up bodies is going to result in your re-incarceration…revoking your bail…and I won’t be able to get you out after that. A man like you ought to be able to manage with his fists…”

“Yeah, I can manage.” It had been so long since he had been in a good fight that he’d gotten carried away with the claws in that chop shop and he was determined not to do that again. It wouldn’t be worth the risk. “You got somewhere in mind?”

“There’s a amphetamine processing facility…somewhere. I took out their incoming cargo of materials last night…but I’d like to shut down the lab…”

“If they think you’re on to them, they’ve probably moved it.”

“Undoubtedly…but Havensport isn’t Hell’s Kitchen…much less ground to cover. If they’ve relocated within the city, we ought to be able to find them with a little effort and…”

“I’ll need my bike for that…roaming about the city on foot…”

“How do you think I do it?”

They appeared to be staring at one another, a contest neither side could truly win, since Matt could not actually stare him down and sooner or later, Logan would have to look away from the eyes hidden behind red tinted glasses.

“I’m not you.”

“You can’t just go to her house…risk everything…”

“I have a plan.”

“And that is?”

Logan shrugged. “I need to let someone in the family know I’m okay…or others will be tearing up the county looking for me. We don’t want that. I’m gonna call the someone from Tigh Ard…tell ‘em I’m taking a bit of a break…have ‘em bring me the bike. Problems solved.”

“If you’re riding around town on that thing, someone’s bound to recognize it…”

“You proposing I steal some wheels.” He chuckled at the other man’s irritation. “Only ones likely to recognize it will be ones who would recognize me…and if we’re sticking to largely nocturnal doings…then I don’t think there’s a damn thing to worry about. Besides…I think she’s someone we’ll want to have on our side for this…if it comes down to another ally.” He didn’t plan on telling his contact any more than necessary, but of everyone at Tigh Ard, she was probably his best bet for contact and confidentiality.

“We don’t want to place anyone…”

“We won’t be.” He glanced at the bedside clock. Two in the afternoon. If he made the call now, from somewhere other than his cell phone or Matt’s room phone, he might get his bike back before nightfall. “I’m gonna go line us up an apartment…send you the details…arrange someone to pick up your bags in the alley…see to the bike…”

They had to be cautious about going out, but they couldn’t stay trapped in this room, especially since being here painted a target on them, as if it were an invitation to come for them at will. It was tempting to booby-trap the room, but that wasn’t Matt’s style. If there was going to be a fight, he wanted to meet it head on. Let them come…but not yet.

He did not ask how he would know the pick up car when it came. Matt instinctively knew that he would just know it when it arrived. It was going to take him much of Logan’s absence to get those items down the fire escape to the alley without being noticed. In broad daylight, that was going to be a challenge, but it was a challenge Matt accepted.

“Meet at Bruno’s…biker bar on the east side…no one’s likely to know me there, ought to make a safe place to connect.” Logan had only eaten there once, with the Stewarts, after a late night scramble to get a guy’s Harley up and running for a charity ride the following day. That had been ages ago, and having kept his head down, Logan thought it unlikely that anyone was going to remember him. Even if they did, the biker set looked out for one another, and Logan trusted their honorability to keep mum about his being there.

“Do I look like I belong in a biker bar?” Matt chuckled.

“In that suit,” Logan chuckled in return as he opened the window that led to the fire escape, “I’m not sure you look like you belong anywhere other than a court room.”

Matt smoothed down his tie, still grinning. “Think I should change then?”

“For the time being…yeah…you might not want to look like Murdock the lawyer…just a regular guy down on his luck looking to start fresh in a new place.” Matt could not realize how true that description really was about his predicament. “He opened up the suitcase, pulled out a set of clothes. “Ditch the suit.”

“Regular guy…down on his luck…new place…blind as a stump,” he laughed, already beginning to undress. “Got it.”

Glad that Matt was not resisting the change, Logan shoved the jacket, tie, shirt, trousers and shoes into the suitcase before closing it again. By the time Matt was finished, his hair tousled from pulling the t-shirt over his head, his sweatpants slightly faded but not threadbare, he looked exactly the way Logan thought he should look. “You could hide the blind thing…if you wanted.” He knew Matt was perfectly able to pull off normal if he wished to. This might be the best time to give it a try. He took the suitcase and hopped out onto the fire escape.

“Go on…I’ll think about it.”

“Don’t think too long…and don’t strain anything…”

“Get out of here.”

Logan’s heavy steps grew more distant as he climbed down the escape and Matt, though he could not see him, made not of where the man stashed the suitcase when he reached the bottom. It would save Matt a trip…but it might cost him every article of clothing he owned if some homeless person found it first.

Right, he thought, as soon as Logan was too far away to hear well any longer. New cell phones. Something his ‘employers’ couldn’t trace. He hoped Constantine called by then, or it was going to be damned difficult to get hold of the man and their hopes of containing Black Sky in whatever way the man was looking for was going to evaporate with him.


	16. 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Introducing Faith Lehane from Buffy the Vampire Slayer...

To say she was intrigued by the phone call, the request, was putting it mildly. The Wolverine made a good sparring partner, someone she could not easily take down and who wasn’t afraid of her strengths. There were others in Tigh Ard she could tangle with when the mood struck her, but Logan had enough pent up frustration by the end of each day overseeing the building that he always seemed keen to accept her challenge. On the nights when he didn’t, or when she grew restless for a life long behind her, she roamed Havesnport’s streets, a Slayer without vampires to kill who found other prey in petty thieves, muggers, rapists and the ilk, people she took down and who, after a quick call, were always there for the police to pick up. It wasn’t the same, it wasn’t much, but it helped Faith to keep her edge.

Jessie worried about her, but at least she always knew where Faith was, and by now knew that Faith was not about taking stupid chances.

Or at least, Faith assumed that Jessie trusted her judgement. Maybe Faith was expecting too much, taking too much for granted.

Either way, what harm could there be in a jaunt over to Rachel’s to pick up Logan’s bike for him, drive it into town…have some dinner and then hitch a ride home? Maybe she’d call Jessie to come into town and get her and the two of them could enjoy a night away from the craziness that was Tigh Ard. Jessie almost never left the grounds unless it was to shop for the House. Surely she’d like the chance to kick her heals up, share a few drinks in Glitter, maybe a few dances…and then see what happened from there?

She had just finished lacing her boots and pulling on her jacket when the one person Logan had asked about stumbled through the front door, hands thrust in his pockets, his eyes bleary and red from a day’s drive and too many hours without a good stiff drink.

He mumbled a greeting to her, or at least she thought it was a greeting, and continued past.

“Logan’s looking for you,” she quipped, surprised he had even noticed her in his condition, let alone acknowledged her. They shared a common experience with demons and Ghoulies and things that went bump in the night and she found his attitude towards things often mirrored her own…or what hers use to be, and she liked swapping stories with him over some damn fine alcohol…or not so fine depending on the day and the money he had on hand. He might be living in Tigh Ard, sharing a meal with the family now and then, but mostly he fended for himself, and she admired that about him. He might be an arrogant sod, but he was no moocher.

“I bet he is,” John groused. He was actually surprised he had not heard from either of the men sooner, until it dawned on him that Murdock didn’t have his number and Logan…well, he didn’t seem like much of a man for chit chat on a phone. “Where is he? I’ll find him…” He had already stashed his treasures in the safest location he knew, where they were guarded by locks and wards and incantations that no one should be able to get through.

“I’m just going to see him now…” Faith hooked her arm around John’s and gave him her most endearing smile. “Why don’t you come with me…save me the walk…”

“I’ve just spent the last four bloody hours driving…”

“Then I’ll drive…at least part of the way.” She had already fished his keys out of his coat pocket despite his protests.

“I need to sleep….and a drink…not necessarily in that order…”

“Sleep will come later…but I can guarantee you a drink if you come with me…the good stuff, not that cheap-ass crap you buy.”

Pulled along beside her, John perked up a little at the promise of alcohol. He supposed he should get Logan off his back if he was to have any hope of a decent night’s sleep. With the afternoon hours ticking away, he wasn’t going to be able to function much longer, but he could at least share some of what he’d found and satisfy Logan’s persistent need to know he was holding to his end of the agreement.

Faith nudged him into the passenger’s side of the truck and turned the vehicle around, back to the south west, towards Havensport. John was contemplating where they were headed and had just decided that Logan was probably at the hotel with Murdock, when Faith stopped his truck on the side of the road. Scowling, John looked out the window towards the lights in the distance.

The Stephens’ residence.

“Why…?”

“Something I have to do first…you saved me a long walk. You know where Bruno’s is?”

“The biker joint on the dock?” John knew every bar in town…the good ones and the questionable ones and the ones most sane people avoided. Bruno’s bordered somewhere between the last too.

“That’s the one. Meet me there?”

Though he eyed her with a touch of suspicion, John shrugged as she got out of the truck and climbed over into the driver’s seat. “Sure…good a place at any.” Good greasy fries and burgers…inexpensive booze…what wasn’t there to like. It didn’t seem like her sort of place, the music or the company, but if it got him the promised drink, he wasn’t going to argue her choices. Besides, somewhere in the middle of all of this, the Wolverine was waiting for him.

“I’ll be right behind you.”

He watched her skirt the edge of the driveway, sticking to the shadows, disappearing into the glare of the low sitting sun so that he lost track of her in under a minute. With the window rolled down, he listened, expecting to hear, or see, the door open, for Faith to speak to someone within, but minutes later he saw her dark shape returning…pushing a motorcycle silently up the drive. He didn’t recognize it, but then, one motorcycle looked very like another to him.

It wouldn’t be the first time he’d been party to theft; hell, he’d been the thief more than once in his life, but he would have liked to know what she was up to before he became complicit in it. At the head of the drive, she threw her leg over the bike, keyed the ignition, and with a flash of the headlight, pealed the bike in front of John’s truck with a wave of her arm commanding him to follow.

You bet I’m gonna follow, he thought, speeding after her. He wasn’t about to hang out here in Rachel’s driveway to be caught and accused of the theft of something he did not possess.

*

The corner apartment Logan had procured for them was small, nothing elaborate, a furnished two bedroom space that smelled of disinfectant cleaners and stale cigarette smoke that no amount of air-freshener was going to erase. It tickled his nose, but no more so than the smoke in a bar did so he was content not to complain. His trunk and suitcase had been placed inside the front door, and since he was currently alone, Matt took the opportunity to familiarize himself with the layout. The place was about the size of the hotel suite, the living room significantly smaller to make way for the second bedroom and the small kitchen on his right. The refrigerator was empty, the beds unmade…rather like a college dorm room he mused thought with a grin.

Going back to your college days, eh Matty, he thought, hearing his father’s voice in those words although his father had never been there to see him go to college. He wondered, as he ran his hands along the furniture, learning the dimensions, the textures, the details that his eyes would never give him, if his father would have been proud of what he had grown up to be.

Maybe he would have been disappointed that Matt had given into the Murdock devil and learned to live with his fists.

Maybe he would have respected what Matt was trying to do.

Trying to second guess his long deceased father gave him little more than a headache and a stabbing in his chest that he could not afford to allow to take root. Not now, at least.

He opened the window of the bedroom where he stood. This was the corner room, windows on two sides, open and airy and, he imagined, full of light at the height of day. The cool breeze on his face, drawing the last of the day’s warmth low across his skin as the sun sank beyond the apartment’s front door, made him close his eyes and breathe deep. The scent of the sea was stronger here blowing from the eastern window across the water he could hear pulsing beneath the more immediate sounds of life, without the heavy industrial smells of the docks. But that was there too, distant and faint, somewhere to the north, out the other window where the fire escape from this third floor room led down to the ground. He was glad Logan hadn’t opted to accommodate his handicap, glad for a room on the top floor with such an openness to it. Easily escaped from, few constrictions, and the ability to witness the world. It might prove overwhelming come the hour for rest, but that hour was still a long ways off.

“Figured you’d want this room.” Matt had heard Logan enter the apartment, the first time they had crossed paths since the hotel earlier that day, and was thus not surprised when the man spoke to him. The metal beneath his skin made the man’s steps too heavy to be masked as anyone else.

“If you want…”

“I don’t particularly care. Only planning to sleep in one of them…the less light the better.” Murdock didn’t have that problem. He was perpetually ‘in the dark’.

“Then I’ll take it.” It was a little disorienting after the more claustrophobic conditions of Hell’s Kitchen, more like his time at Columbia, and Matt found he didn’t mind that comparison at all. “Here.” He pulled one of the new phones from his pants pocket and tossed it directly into Logan’s hand.

No fumbling involved.

“I’ve programmed our numbers into them…should we need to reach one another. We should probably put in John’s…”

“I’ll do that.” Logan sat on the bed, took out his house cell and began copying John’s number from the old one to the new one. “Have you talked to him yet?”

“No.” Nothing had changed since the afternoon. John still, as far as Matt knew, did not have Matt’s number.

Logan grunted and held out his hand. “Give me your phone.” The number was quickly put into that one as well before he gave it back. “What about your other one?” He was removing the battery from his regular phone. It would mean that no one, not family, not friends, would be able to reach him, but it also meant his calls couldn’t be tracked by anyone expecting to do so. With Matt’s phone, however, was the risk of being tracked worth the possibility that his benefactor might not be able to reach him…and thus might be alerted that Matt was onto them?

After the events at the dock, Matt’s assault on the cargo ship and raid of the business offices, weren’t they already alerted?

Matt must have made the same conclusion, as he was already following Logan’s lead and removing the phone battery. It would be useless to those who gave it to him now.

“Thought we were meeting at Bruno’s…”

“I know. I…” Logan shrugged. “I wanted to be sure you got moved in okay.” He sounded embarrassed, as if he was not use to letting people, most of them at least, know he cared enough to be concerned.

“Other than an empty fridge and the need for sheets…it’s all good.” He would move his trunk and suitcase into the room, but he did not plan to unpack them. He did not intend to be here that long. Truthfully, he wanted this to be over with. He wanted to be home. With another uneasy twist in his belly, he wondered if this was what it felt like to be homesick.

He had never been homesick a day in his life. Then again, he had never been far from Hell’s Kitchen.

“Should we get a cab? Go together?” If Faith came through like he’d asked, he’d have the bike back within the hour, and though Matt wasn’t against the trek through darkening streets into the seedier part of town, Logan wasn’t interested in painting a target on themselves for any passing street thugs. Matt could pull of normal alright…but his normal façade of vulnerability played in his favor, kept people from assuming too much, and Logan knew he wouldn’t want to give up that façade for long.

They could travel separately, different cabs, one by cab and one on foot, but that seemed a waste of time and resources. How better to know if their escape to this new refuge had been compromised then by discovering if they were being followed? “Picking up your bike there?” He presumed they must be, otherwise they could continue whatever conversation needed continuing right where they were.

“Better than having someone show up here if we want to keep this place out of the public eye.”

“Let’s go then…and tomorrow…we get sheets.”

“Deal,” chuckled Logan. “Sheets, food and beer.”

“College priorities.”

“What?”

Matt laughed. “Nothing…just a memory.”

Logan shrugged. He’d never made it through college. Closest he’d gotten was his time in Xavier’s school…and that had hardly been the skimping of a student. He hadn’t thought of those days in a long time. Something about Matthew Murdock stirred those memories, memories Logan wasn’t sure he wanted to have stirred.


	17. 17

Matt heard her approach, felt it, even over the din of throbbing country music undercut by the basketball game upon the television and the chatter of the collection of patrons mingling throughout the bar, over the smell of beer, burgers, cheap perfume and cheaper cologne and bodies sweating beneath layers of cloth and leather. There was no perfume on her, only a layer of something both primal and sensual…the scent of a hunter that reminded him of someone he would rather not recall now. He turned his face towards her approaching presence as she reached Logan, draped herself over the mutant’s back, her arms about his neck, her face pressed to his cheek to cheek.

“So, Chops…who’s Mister Sexy here?” she purred.

Logan growled, but he did not sound particularly annoyed. If anything, Matt got the impression that these two had been intimate at some time in the past, a casual intimacy that had nothing to do with love and everything to do with raging fires that needed quenching by someone close at hand.

It had been a long time since Matt had felt anything like that.

“Faith…Matt Murdock. Matt…Faith Lehane…”

The woman took his hand in hers, a strong hand, soft but with the callouses of a warrior. “You don’t say…Matt Murdock, eh?”

Logan rolled his eyes. Of course she knew. There probably wasn’t a person in Tigh Ard who didn’t know…except for the few who rarely sat before a television to watch it. At least Faith had the tact not to swoon him.

“It’s a pleasure Matt…can I call you Matt…”

“I…uh…yeah…” He had the feeling she recognized him, despite his having no remembrance of anyone bearing her name or her sense of presence, and that was mildly disconcerting. But Logan’s choice of timing, offering his hand to the wan looking man who sidled up to the table with Faith interrupted what might have turned into a potentially awkward situation.

“Was beginning to think you’d skipped out on us, bub…”

John straddled an empty chair, immediately scraping up a fist full of nuts from the bowl upon the table. “You wanted answers didn’t you? Sometimes that requires a road trip. So…did I miss anything exciting?”

“A little jail time…nothing Murdock couldn’t solve.” Logan wagged his finger at Faith. “Not one word to anyone at Tigh Ard, you hear me?”

“Not one word,” she promised, dropping into the chair opposite John, seated between Logan and the obviously blind man with him. Whether by choice or by accident, she realized she was being initiated into a secret, and the possibilities excited her. Logan wasn’t likely to make that sort of mistake; if he wanted her help with something secret that involved more than retrieving his bike, she was all for it.

“Logan…”

Ah, she realized, whatever Logan’s plan was, he had not discussed it with Matt.

“We’re gonna need someone like Faith on our side,” Logan grunted unapologetically. “I trust her…”

Faith leaned against Matt’s shoulder to purr in his ear, “I’m a big girl…I can take care of myself.”

Though Matt scowled, not liking that this decision had been made without him, he did have a suspicion that Logan’s faith in her was well-placed. It was less her ability to take care of herself that concerned him, however. It was the knowledge that someone else would know his secrets, and the more people who knew, the more vulnerable he became.

“This jail time have anything to do with…”

“We didn’t find Black Sky, if that’s what you’re asking,” Logan replied to John’s question.

“Not yet…but we will.” John had not had enough sleep. John had barely eaten and it had been too many hours since his last drink. He hadn’t showered and smelled of the stale stench of chain smoking inside an enclosed vehicle. There was something about him, a hum, a buzzing, that Matt did not recognize as anything natural, no effect of a drug or anything else he knew. It made him scratch unconsciously at his arm as he moved it casually further away from John.

“Not tonight, I hope. I’ve got some of what we’ll need to hopefully contain it…but it may take me a day or two to get the rest together…and a helluva a lot of sleep if you want me to be at all efficient.” John grabbed a passing barmaid by the arm, asked for a cheeseburger, extra pickles, fries and a beer, and then returned his focus to the table as he let her go.

“You want anything?” Logan asked Faith, since John had not bothered to ask.

She snagged a fry from Logan’s plate, one of those thick, greasy fries that one normally only found in highway diners or places like this, and popped it into her mouth. “I’m good. Girl’s gotta watch her figure, you know.”

“With your metabolism,” started Logan.

“Everyone else does the watching for you…you don’t need to worry about that,” John assured her.

“Why thank you, John.” Faith grinned, took a fry from Matt’s plate this time, and leaned against the back seat of the booth. Matt, having eaten the burger and feeling too stuffed as it was, slid his plate towards her, offering the bulk of his fries to her. She smiled at him but said nothing, and his nod in return confirmed that he knew her reaction without his eyes to show it to him. “So…what’s this Black Sky? Sounds like part of a bad ancient prophecy…”

“There are prophecies involved, love…some good and not so good ones depending on who’s doing the telling.”

“Any that tell us what sort of weapon it is?” Logan chose the word it specifically to mask the nature of the threat. There was a history with an ‘anointed one’ in Faith’s past, though whether she was involved in hunting that child or not Logan could not recall. There was a time when Faith might not have balked at killing a child-threat, but after the pregnancy that wasn’t, and years of slow softening, he was no longer certain she would, or could, to what might be necessary.

She would, however, be a match for any mystical ninja assassins sent her way. Or he hoped she would be.

“In the right hands…the bringer of rain for crops, the bringer of mild weather, gentle winds, and the healing of diseases and injuries. In the wrong hands…the bringer of darkness, of storms, of lightning and fire, the rampant spread of death across the land, he who wields the sword chaos to strike down any who anger and disobey him.”

“You told us that…”

“And I’m telling you again. If that thing comes into maturity before we stop it…there might be no stopping it. You might be a match for a thing that flies, that wields a sword like a master ninja, that can strike opponents down with disease and lightning and fire…but most of us aren’t that lucky. Anything…anyone…that important is going to be heavily guarded; it’s gonna take a small army to get close enough to…”

“We’ll get close enough,” Matt assured him.

“We? Logan maybe…but you? What are you going to do, tap your way through the Hand’s ranks…smack them with your cane?”

Logan chortled. “Don’t underestimate this particular blind man. With the three of us,” he eyed Faith with the question in his eyes, “we’ll get you close enough to do whatever you have to do to diffuse the treat…”

“Ninjas? Mystic threat? A good knock down fight?” Faith repeated, less of a question than a mental checklist of what they were up against. If Logan included Matt in that fight, then it was proof to her of exactly who the stubbly blind man was. “Count me in.”

How she’d explain it to Jessie…how she could get away with it without giving the other woman an explanation, would be a trickier proposition than an actual fight would be.

“It will be dangerous,” Matt began.

“I’m use to dangerous…I’m a Slayer…”

“Slayer?”

“Vampire and demon hunter,” explained Logan. If he had thought they could control River, he would have included her. That was one dangerous girl. But she was too unpredictable, and he could not risk her saying something to the family in one of her less lucid moments that might endanger what they were trying to do.

“Vamp…” Matt bit his tongue, shaking his head, his disbelief obvious. But if there were such things as Black Sky, a spirit in human form, and other such things that Constantine had hinted at, who was to day vampires weren’t real as well. Hell, aliens had come from the sky and destroyed a good portion of Hell’s Kitchen. If there could be extraterrestrial aliens, why not vampires and demons.

“Do those vampires and demons wield knives and swords and…”

“Sometimes the wield worse.” Faith patted his wrist. “I might not have the fancy gear you have…or Logan’s instant healing…but nothing’s killed me yet…and I could always borrow yours if you want to worry about me.”

Matt scowled. So she did know. He was about to protest again, but Logan once more spared him the need to do so.

“It wouldn’t fit you…but when we do this…you should be prepared. Gangs in Havensport are bad enough…the Yakuza even worse…but The Hand…”

“Real bad asses, huh?”

“Like your worst nightmares,” Logan assured her. “Murdock and I have to do this…but you don’t have to, Faith. I just thought…” Truthfully, Logan didn’t know what he’d been thinking, except that, when he’d considered who was best to bring him his bike, it had occurred to him that Faith would be the best third wing of this team he could think of. She was bored with fighting petty criminals who were barely a challenge for her strength and skill. This, however…this might be more than she’d bargained for.

“I’ve got your back, Chops…you know I do. If we’re talking something bad enough for you to want back up…something that could threaten Havensport…the family…Jessie…then you bet I’m up for taking them down. Havensport isn’t the Hellmouth…but I sure as hell don’t want any mystical time bomb going off and taking us all with it. You think three of us…”

“Three of us and Constantine,” Logan corrected.

“And Constantine,” she agreed with grin and wink at John, “will be enough?”

“Knowing the numbers we can handle…I think it’ll have to be. We’re not looking to drag an army into this…”

“We’re not turning this city into a warzone.” Matt was adamant about that. He had been prepared, expecting actually, to deal with Black Sky on his own. He had not anticipated Logan dropping into his life, or the mutant dragging anyone else into the situation with him; the fewer of them involved, the happier he would be.

If they needed further back up…well, wasn’t that what the police were for? And wasn’t there a military base somewhere nearby? That would be back up enough.

He hoped.

Nearly done with his plate of food, a satiated look of contentment upon his face, John leaned back and belched. “But not tonight…”

“Not tonight,” agreed Matt. “We have to locate Black Sky first…and,” he faced across the table towards Logan and his nearly empty beer, “Logan and I have something else to attend to tonight…”

Faith leaned forward with her elbows upon the table. “Can I help…or is this a twosome thing only.”

Behind his glasses, Matt blinked. Logan choked on his beer and nearly spit it across the table. “Nothing like that,” the Wolverine growled. “A side mission that…”

“That you’re welcome to help us sort out…if you’re interested.” It would give him a chance to learn what she was capable of. And if they were going into this thing as a team, they needed the opportunity to learn to fight together. As far as he could tell, they were all three use to going it alone. None of what they did had ever been a team sport. Why not give things a test before the shit really hit the fan?

“You bet your shiny red glasses I’m in,” Faith chirped. “Five by five and all that…just tell me when and where.

Logan looked at Matt, allowing him to make the call, assuming that he had some inkling where the lab was located. “Midnight…pier 12…where you found me.”

“Pier 12.” Logan knew exactly where, and by now, Faith knew Havensport well enough to know the precise location too.

“So you don’t need me?” He was going to need at least a day, maybe more, to come up with the last few puzzle pieces they would need against Black Sky. He had to make sure those pieces were just right, or they might as well not even bother trying.

“Not tonight, John…not if you’re not ready. But we’ll need you ready soon…”

Logan nodded. “The sooner the better. I don’t want that kid hitting puberty while we’re sitting around with our thumbs up our asses…”

“Kid?”

“Yea…I’ll fill you in on that later, sweetheart.”

“Good…because I don’t want any surprises.”

“Don’t worry,” Matt assured her. “Neither do we.”


	18. 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Violence; non-graphic, minor spoilers for Daredevil Season 1

The amphetamine lab was too big, too equipment reliant to move from the downtown basement where it was located, masked by average looking office building of glass, brick and steel. A building that, if controlled by the Yakuza or whatever members of The Hand who were making Havensport their home, still housed ordinary businesses. A chiropractor, a dentist, the local corporate office of a homelessness charity, a divorce attorney and, on the ground floor, a florist. None of them, by the names on the office leases, seeming to be members of the either Japanese organization, none of them, it seemed, aware of the business being conducted in a basement that was only accessible by one street level door and a delivery platform at the back of the building. If any of those in the building had any concerns for what came and went through that door it seemed they did not speak up.

Why should they if the price of their office space was fair and the building was well maintained.

When the trio arrived at the building they paused so that Matt could listen and gauge the threat level present in the building. There were lights on in the uppermost floor of the four story building but the rest of the building was dark, the loading platform lit by the glare of a single yellow bulb that flickered and hissed and popped as if on the verge of blowing its coil and falling into darkness.

“Cleaners…two of them,” Matt murmured, the sound of a paper shredder humming blurring into the sound of a vacuum cleaner as the two cleaners went about their business. From his scowl, however, Logan knew something was amiss, something that made him ball his fists in frustrated anticipation.

“What?” he grunted, demanding to know what else Matt was detecting…or not detecting. Faith had taken a few steps away to peer into the alley across from where they stood, the side alley that ran back out to the street where the cleaning crew had parked their supply van. There were no other nearby vehicles visible.

“I’m not sensing anyone…no heartbeats…but yet…” He could not put his finger on it, only that, the last time he’d been led to a warehouse by clues carefully supplied by his enemies, there had been on man…Nobu…who Matt now believed had been a member of The Hand…a man who had masked his presence until it was too late for Matt to back out of a fight gracefully.

Not that Matt had even considered backing out at the time. Angry over Mrs. Cardenas’ death, he had been itching for a fight…and had almost died because of it.

Well, he was better protected now, and if another Nobu was hiding within the basement of this building, Matt, Logan and Faith stood a better chance of walking away from this fight unscathed then if any of them entered it alone.

“One of them is taking the elevator to the ground floor…” The vacuum had grown silent and the rustling of trash bags was heard as the one who remained behind gathered them. The other, his hands full of cleaning supplies, waited for the elevator to reach its destination.

“Why don’t we split up…” Faith mussed up her hair to appear disheveled and disoriented and was already bounding back to the front door, intending to greet the cleaner and finagle her way inside. Logan tried to grab her arm, hoping to hold her back, but his hand came up empty. He growled.

“She never has been good at following orders,” he said with a shrug, an apology of sorts that in no way suggested he regretted his choice to bring her into this. Splitting up, covering all three entrances, seemed a good idea.

“I could have gone in through the roof…”

“Could have…but we know they’re not up there…so we go where they probably are. I’ll take the delivery door.” He was the strongest, and had no doubt that his claws would shred through the retractable door’s thin metal sheeting if he could not easily break the lock to lift it.

As long as the cleaning crew was present, the building’s alarm system would be off. Any doors they had to bust down wouldn’t raise an alarm until much later.

Glowering, not use to following the lead of others in a fight, preferring to approach a problem his own way, Matt darted down the side alley towards the steps that led down, at the side of the building, to the single door basement entrance. He managed to duck down the steps out of the light in time to avoid the headlights of a passing car, and in the distance he could hear Faith chatting up the man who had come to the door.

“Someone grabbed my purse,” she was sobbing, the sound fake and forced to Matt’s ears, but likely not to the poor-middle-aged fellow she was accosting with her tale. “I’ve lost my phone, my keys…everything…can I use the phone here? Call the police…call a ride home…? Please…”

Matt knew from experience how hard it could be to say no to a beautiful woman in distress, even when he could tell that woman was not being totally honest with him. The man, babbling his apologies and sincere offer to help, quickly welcomed her into the building at the same moment a muted crash reverberated through the loading area at the back of the building.

“Subtle,” he muttered. But there wasn’t a choice. He was going to have to break into the building as well, kick in the door since he could not unlock it. Not for the first time he wondered if he should put his acute hearing to use by learning to pick locks…but most of the time when it would be helpful, there was not enough time to do it properly. Logan and Faith were already in the building.

While Faith cleared the lobby of the cleaners, knocking both unconscious and propping them up by the elevator doors, Matt and Logan found themselves in the same large open space, an empty space here filled with pallets and boxes and two closed office doors at the far end of the room behind which Matt could hear refrigeration equipment and the hum of computers. Ingredients storage, he decided, and the main office of the operation, innocent looking enough to any delivery truck drivers or the hapless UPS or Federal Express drivers who might show up here. There was a ramp going down to the basement level and an elevator shaft and staircase that both came from above and reached below into a space he imagined would be furnished with work tables, measuring scales and bagging equipment.

As Faith descended the stairs to join her partners, Matt felt them, a half dozen suddenly active heartbeats entering the loading dock on both ramp and stairs like the dead rising from beneath the earth. “Drop!” he shouted, rolling as he did so to avoid the flying star-shaped projectiles launched at his head. The now familiar ‘schtict’ sound of adamantium claws erupting through skin came in time to deflect other shurikens followed, drawing with it the proof of Faith dropping over the railing stairs to land on her feet in the room, thus avoiding what had been aimed at her as well. With none of their initial surprise attack meeting success, the dozen red-clad figures emerged from their low shadows to engage in hand to hand combat.

Hand. Logan knew it, even if Faith and Matt did not. The black and red of their head to toe covering gave their status away, and he suspected they had been led here as a trap, their primary opponent assuming that whoever had destroyed their cargo ship would come for their distribution center next. It was impossible to tell if those same leaders knew that Matt had been behind that destruction, impossible to tell if they knew Logan had been the one to single-handedly dismantle the chop shop. What was obvious was that their presence here had been anticipated, and those manipulating The Hand’s activities expected these six to be strength enough to curb their destructive, disruptive activities.

Remembering his promise, the claws were retracted before his fists ever connected with his adversaries, but Logan made use of them against any weaponry aimed at him, meeting blades, poles, and chains with nearly indestructible metal. Matt could hear it each time, the slicing of metal through Logan’s flesh, the clash of claws against incoming objects. He could hear Faith’s grunts of exertion, the clatter of a mop handle against whatever polearm her adversary was using until at last both were discarded in favor of fists and feet. He could smell and taste the coppery tang of blood in the air, hers, Logan’s, their opponents…his own.

There was almost too much sensory input, the instinct to help the others, to protect them, proving more than once to be a distraction which allowed his own opponents to get strikes in on him that they should never have been able to make. Thankfully, the unusual strength of his suit meant that not one of those blades cut flesh, but there were kicks, punches, flying objects that hit with enough force to bruise the flesh beneath. None of which should have landed. Only when he stopped worrying about the others’ safety, when he forced himself to accept that they were capable enough of fighting their own fights, was Matt able to focus one hundred percent upon his own.

Because of that delay, because of that stubborn insistence upon protecting everyone else, the fight took longer than it should, but in the end, when sparks flew from the strike of Logan’s claws against something metal and ignited a pallet of unassembled cardboard boxes, all six Hand operatives lay unconscious upon the ground. Matt’s impulse to drag them to safety was undercut by the screeching of a smoke alarm.

“I’ll call in the tip…” Faith, her lip and nose bloody, her fists and cheeks bruised, was already taking out her cell as Logan pulled Matt out of the building.

“They’ll burn…” Matt protested, remembering his first exposure to hand, how Nobu had burned. It was, to Matt’s knowledge, the closest he had ever come to having death upon his conscience. Nobu had been the one to accidentally spill the flammable liquid from its barrel encasement, but had been his effort to deflect Nobu’s weaponry that had ignited the spark which had ignited that spill and set the man ablaze.

Sometimes the remembrance of the smell of burning flesh, the sizzle of human skin burning beneath the fabric of the man’s garments, still haunted Matt’s dreams.

In the distance, sirens began to wail. “The fire department will be here before that happens,” the mutant growled.

The quick calculation of the distance of that sound and the speed with which it was moving through deserted nighttime streets was the deciding factor which allowed him to retreat, sprinting away into the shadows with Logan and Faith. Matt took to the rooftops, his preferred route for any path, while Faith emerged onto Havensport’s main street, strutting down the street like she owned them, without a care in the world, and Logan kept in the alley shadows, unable to risk being seen lest someone, somehow, chose to implicate the man on bail for another crime.

Each of them trusted that the code of an organization like The Hand would keep the six, should they actually be arrested, from speaking out, from implicating anyone else for their unconscious state or for the fire that was quickly spreading throughout the loading area and licking its way into the basement and up towards the first floor. Implicating anyone else was an admission that they had been bested. They would likely face repercussions from their bosses for their failure; they would not risk any additional embarrassment. Once their injuries were treated and they would either be released or else booked and likely bailed out by those above them who controlled the organization’s purse strings. Sooner or later, they would again be a threat, but by then, Matt hoped they would have found Black Sky and dealt with that threat. If their efforts succeeded, the Yakuza, and The Hand, would be forced out of Havensport for good.

He hoped they would be detained long enough to never be a threat again. He hoped to be there the day it happened, to feel vindicated in saving this city from the menace in the shadows, to feel that he had done some good for this city, even if it was not ‘his’ city.

There was no need for them to regroup. Faith called a cab for a lift back to Tigh Ard, where Constantine had gone after dinner earlier that evening, and Logan returned to Bruno’s where his bike was still parked in order to ride it back to the hotel. Matt, meanwhile, was content to walk, to nurse his bruises and play over the battle in his head.

Those who had sent him here, provided his room…they had sent his trunk with him, had undoubtedly known what it contained. Since he could not recall anything before that train platform, the logical assumption was that they had sent him here. Perhaps to stage such fights intentionally, perhaps to test his memories, perhaps in the hopes of eradicating everything he stood for by killing the man behind the mask. They had probably expected him to die this night, maybe even counted on it, But could they have expected him to bring reinforcements.

Probably not. But next time they would not be so lucky. It was imperative that they find Black Sky soon, before the odds became impossibly stacked against them.

By the time he reached the hotel, dawn would be nearing its peak. He would seek rest on the sheetless bed after tending to his injuries. Tomorrow would be time enough to make a new plan with the others.

Tonight he was still alive. He could not ask for much more.

*

Faith crept silently into her room, silently into bed, and curled herself around Jessie’s back, freshly showered with the majority of her bruises already fading to yellow. By the morning, those would be gone. The cuts on her lip and above her eye would take a little longer to heal but they weren’t that bad. Maybe Jessie wouldn’t make a big deal over them, knowing as she did that Faith was prone to nighttime adventures on Havensport’s streets. There wasn’t any reason, as far as Faith could see, that anything should appear out of the ordinary.

But it was.

These hadn’t been vamps that she could stake and be done with. They hadn’t been small time criminals, thieves and rapists, that she could easily knock out with a few minutes of fighting. These had been highly trained assassins of a sort she had never fought before. Her skill allowed her to hold her own, allowed her to put down one of the men to Logan’s three and Matt’s two, but she was going to need to train harder if tonight’s fight was any indication of what might come next. Because until they found this Black Sky kid, until the threat was eradicated in Havensport, there would be a next time, and once the enemy realized that they would not be so easily put down, they would probably come after the three of them with everything they had.

This time, Faith had been lucky. Next time, she might not be.

She would make Logan’s excuses to the family, to the Stewarts, as he had asked, but what excuses was she going to be able to offer Jessie? How was she ever going to be able to tell her the truth?

She held the woman tighter, closed her eyes, and gave herself to exhausted sleep. Daylight wasn’t that far away…and there would be things to do.

*

The sudden bursting of the boy from his bed, a silent screaming filling the room though the child never opened his mouth, brought Creel wide awake upon his cot, body and mind at the ready for a confrontation with any enemy that had snuck into the room past him. But there was no one else in the room, only himself and the child who sat shaking upon the bed as if he had witnessed some devastating horror.

“It’s okay, kid…” Creel sat on the side of the bed, propelled by an instinct that had he had never been able to nurture with his own son. He did not know how to offer comfort, had never been in a position to do so before, but when the boy threw himself against his broad chest, clinging to him with short arms, his face buried into the man’s shirt, Creel gave in to the impulse and awkwardly wrapped his arms around the child.

Whatever he was to their handlers, he was still a child. Whatever Creel was supposed to be for this boy, he was still a guardian. Guardianship did not end with his physical well-being. It extended to his mental and emotional well-being too.

He did not know what the nightmare had been, and the boy could not tell him. But it had contained some sort of threat. Creel had no doubt of that. “No one is going to hurt you. I promise.”

Though it took time to be comforted, the words and the embrace were enough. For the first time, the boy truly seemed to trust him.

And Creel found strength in that. Strength enough to make a decision he had been struggling with for many days. One way or another, he would follow it through. One way or another, this boy would be safe.

From everyone.

*

The bike was in their parking spot by the time Matt reached the apartment; he could smell the heat of its engine when he passed it, could feel the warmth of the metal tank that suggested Logan had been home for nearly forty minutes by now. He was already snoring deeply, a sound Matt could hear from the parking lot if he tuned his hearing in the right direction. Good. That meant Matt could get in without confrontation.

They had nothing to be confrontational about; everyone had done their jobs admirably, the small group of Hand soldiers had been incapacitated, and the amphetamine lab had been completely destroyed by the fire Logan had accidentally sparked. But Matt knew he had not been at his best, had let his feelings hamper his actions when he should have trusted the others more. Perhaps they hadn’t seen it, perhaps they would not find fault with his performance…

But good Catholic boy Matthew Murdock found enough fault in himself for each of them.

Instead of coming in the door, he climbed the fire escape and entered his room via the window, grateful there were no lights on the exterior of this side of the building. Once inside, he drew the privacy blinds long enough to peel out of the suit, inspect it for any hint of damage, and then tuck it away in the securely locked trunk which was then shoved into the back of the closet behind a cluster of boxes Logan had found to hide it. Wearing only his black boxers, he climbed back out onto the fire escape where he sat and stared up at the night sky.

He wished he could see the stars again.

He wished a lot of things, but tonight, not one of them was going to come to pass. What he wanted, he was going to have to find ways to get for himself. Some of those things, he was never going to find.

It was that demoralizing thought that eventually chased him back indoors and into bed. He needed his rest. Who knew what tomorrow was going to bring.


	19. 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes....there are vampires...  
> Kajan is my own creation. Carl and Tamara Bruce are the heads of the Tigh Ard House (clone 'owners'). Curt...is Curt Wild, an import from the film Velvet Goldmine.  
> Father Andrew is my own.

Finding the exact length of fulgurite was and easier task than expected, as it only took trolling online auction sites and gem and stone sellers to find a woman who was willing to supply his needs in exchange for the exorcism of her two hundred and fifty year old home. Ghosts were an easy thing, most of the time, so after gassing up his truck, and getting a message to Logan through Faith, John set out on the eight hour drive upstate to make the exchange.

Acquiring an appropriate supply of pure, untainted infant’s blood was going to be much trickier and would likely require a bargain with one of the Coven Hall vampires. By his reckoning, there should be no such thing as ‘good’ blood sucking demons…and yet Tigh Ard was full of them. John went out of his way to avoid them, finding their presence generally disconcerting, and the thought of owing any one of them anything for this undertaking he’d been roped into made his skin crawl. Besides, how was he going to explain to them what he needed it for? They were bound to ask questions he could not answer…and how was he to know if they could read his mind? What if they could…and told Carl and Tamara…what in the hell would he do then?

So, trying to keep his shit together, avoid that uncomfortable confrontation as long as possible, John opted for making the drive north as soon as the deal was struck. He sat through family dinner, giving every appearance of another normal day, and as soon as it was over, he would be on the road. Come daybreak, he’d be at his destination, and after a few hours of shut eye, he’d make the exchange…an exorcism for the lightning glass…and then the eight hour drive home and another long sleep.

Murdock was going to hate the delay, but it couldn’t be helped. An overly tired exorcist and demonologist was going to be less effective then they needed him to be. Besides…as far as he knew…there was still no trace of Black Sky. He was beginning to wonder if it was even in Havensport.

But they had to operate under the assumption that it was until it was proven otherwise…and that meant John proceeding as planned.

“Is there something you need, Monsieur Constantine.”

Bollocks. John snuffed out the cigarette he had just lit, in case the dark haired was able to make the thing burst into flames between his fingers, and stuffed it back into the box. Kajan wasn’t even French, but he had adopted some of the coven leader’s affectations almost as if they were natural to him. “What makes you think that?”

“I saw the way you were regarding us during dinner…”

John frowned. That was true, although he had thought his many glances in the direction of the coven’s members were discreet enough not to be noticed by anyone. He had hoped to put this discussion off to a better time, but perhaps making his request now would mean he would have all necessary ingredients by the time he returned to Tigh Ard.

“I’m learning a new ritual…but it requires some very specific ingredients…that I’m not sure how to provide…”

Kajan leaned against the bed of the pickup, his elbows upon the side panel. “Blood?” Blood rituals among his people were nothing unusual. Blood was a crucial component to life, and when a ritual was meant to affect that life in any way, positive or negative, blood was always required. Familiar with John’s work, a blood ritual was hardly a surprise to him at all.

“Human blood,” John nodded quietly. “More than just a cut on my hand will provide. Not just human blood…but pure blood…untainted with disease or vaccines or…”

“Infants blood.” The vampire’s sharp features seemed more pronounced as the words fell from his lips. “A rare, difficult ritual, I presume…one you are expecting to need?”

Shrugging, John replied, “I like to be prepared. He could practice a ritual or spell with any blood, often substituting cow or pig blood as they were easier to procure, but this time would be no practice. This time would be a do or die performance and casting. The ingredients had to be right the first time, or he might as well stay home and not bother to try.

“Specific indeed.” Kajan backed away from the truck. “I will see what I can do…but I can promise you it will cost you.”

“How much?”

The curl of the vampire’s lips, the twinkle in his black eyes, made Constantine shudder, but as he was use to staring down the face of evil, he did not flinch away from the young looking vampire. He did not feel a sense of evil from him so much as a hint of mischievousness, like a trouble-making teen, but it was enough to conjure a variety of less than pleasant payments Kajan could exact from him. Whatever they were, John would have no choice but to comply if he was to get the blood he needed. If he tried to get himself, he would probably be arrested.

“That will depend on how difficult it is to obtain. I will let you know…”

“The sooner the better…”

Kajan eyed him suspiciously. “In a hurry?”

“Too many things to do at once,” John replied hastily, hoping it sounded plausible. “On my way to an exorcism now…” Maybe if he seemed rushed, he could escape Kajan’s company.

Truth was, he did have Curt’s request to sort out, but part of him, the part that understood Tigh Ard’s power as a House, a combination of many intricate parts, was secretly hoping Curt would change his mind. Untangling Curt’s integral thread, shifting its House-bearing properties to another was not only complicated, he suspected it would be dangerous, for him, for Curt, for Kavan, and John didn’t want the responsibility for the attempt blowing up in their faces. He suspected he already had everything he needed for that undertaking, but still he put it off.

Surely Black Sky was a more pressing, more deadly threat. Surely Curt would understand…Curt who had not come to him again to check on his progress…Curt who seemed content to continue with life as usual.

Maybe Curt had already changed his mind.

“I will see what I can arrange,” Kajan promised. “Come to me when you return…I will tell you more then.”

“Yeah…sure…okay,” John muttered as he climbed into the cab and gunned the engine. Maybe he would find some other source during his travels. Maybe Kajan would forget.

And maybe Black Sky would drop dead and all of these preparations would be unnecessary.

Kajan laughing in his rearview mirror, as if he had heard every unspoken thought John had made, was enough to make John consider how one would exorcise a vampire from House power without destroying everything.

He didn’t think he was willing to try.

*

Logan’s choice to lay low the next night, made spur of the moment after John’s call about making a drive for one of the key ingredients in the Black Sky catching ritual made sense to Matt, but unlike the mutant who was content to switch on the television and watch pro-wrestling while devouring a bucket of chicken and a six pack of beer from the stash they had picked up earlier in the day, Matt could not sit still. After the blows they had dealt the Yakuza, had dealt the woman in the luxury car who Matt now believed was this Lady Deathstrike Logan had spoken of, he yearned to get back onto the street, get his ear to the city’s pulse and learn the state of things. The chaos of the wrestling on television brought back images of his father, remembrances of that last televised fight…the night he had died. With his suit beneath his clothing, and his helmet stuffed into a duffle bag he had picked up on their outing for food and basic household supplies, Matt left Logan to his lounging and headed instead to the gym he had previously noted. It wasn’t dark enough yet to hit the street but he had to blow off steam somehow.

There were few people there when he arrived, as it was technically the dinner hour, and the few who were paid no mind to the blind man at the boxing bag. They left him to throw frustrated punches, went about their business, but nothing Matt did, no number of strikes upon the hapless bag were alleviating the stinging burden weighing in the pit of his stomach. When he finally gave up on the futility of an opponent who did not strike him back, he resumed walking the streets, sports bag slung over his shoulder, the hood of his black sweatshirt drawn up over his head, his hand in his pocket. He was tempted to toss his cane away as he walked, to remove the glasses, and wander without them, something he had done in Hell’s Kitchen many times, but that he had not dared here yet. Havensport was growing more familiar with each day, more comfortable, but it was not home, and so he decided against letting his guard down here.

No place but Hell’s Kitchen was ever going to be home.

His steps faltered as his senses were assaulted by the sweetness of candle wax and incense and the presence of people ahead streaming out of the open doors of a church. Not the perfumed pious masses he was used to from such places, but unwashed masses who came from one door, crushed together along the narrow sidewalk and turned left about a hundred feet away where the mixed aromas of food wafted through open doors to mingle with the more saintly smells of the church. A soup kitchen, he decided, listening to the hungry people pass, cold people with little to show for their lives except a sameness with those around them.

Matt fished in his pocket for some change, a few bills, anything to give to one of them, but by the time he pulled what little cash he had free, the last of the homeless had passed him by.

He wasn’t use to paper money. It was too much of a hassle to keep track of.

Someone…a priest he surmised, stood in the doorway, watching him. Matt could feel his gaze, curious and still, for several long moments before the man retreated into the sanctuary. One half of the double doors closed behind him, the other remained open and Matt, feeling as though he was beckoned inside though no exchange, beyond an acknowledgment of one another’s presence, had been made, passed through the iron gate, up the stone stairs, and into the dim warmth of a room with a familiar sense about it.

It had to be a Catholic church. Something about the feel of them was always the same, even without the eyes to see it. The familiar stations, the familiar flickering heat of prayer candles, the lingering aroma of old, worn hymnals and the thousands of other tiny smells that announced an altar, an organ, the coins in the collection plate, the faintness of wine and wafer, the heat of the sun through colored glass windows where the variation of temperatures due to the changes in color painted a picture inside of Matt’s head.

Not wanting to disturb the priest, wanting only to soak up the peace here and hope that it subverted the roaring devil in his head, Matt selected an empty bench near the front of the nave, genuflected, and after dropping his gym bag on the pew, sank down next to it with a heavy sigh.

“That is the sound of a burdened soul.”

“You’re Irish, Father…”

“Aye, that I am…though I have not been there in many years.” He often longed to go back, to see if his memories of the places from his youth matched the reality, but the needs of Havensport kept him here. “You have a good ear. Names’ Andrew…”

“It’s a gift,” Matt admitted, not inclined to reveal anything more than that. “Matthew…” It seemed less important to reveal his last name here. No one would know his father here, no one would know his history. Using his first name only kept him anonymous, kept him invisible in this smaller city. Invisible felt good at this moment, invisible, but not non-existent.

“You missed Mass…but I suppose you know that.” As he spoke, Father Andrew went about his daily routine of stuffing hymnals and Bibles into their slots on the backs of pews, picking up gloves or hats or other items left behind, sweeping bits of trash into a receptacle he carried with him. “Here for confession then?”

The corners of Matt’s mouth twitched as he contemplated how to answer that question. His hesitation was long enough that Andrew had likely given up on his replying, but finally Matt did murmur, “I don’t know exactly why I’m here, Father. I haven’t been inside of a church in a long time.” Truthfully, with the gap in his memory and no idea how long of a time period that gap covered, he could not say when he had last been in a church. Not for a service…he didn’t recall having done that since he was a boy, other than high holy days and funerals. He preferred empty churches, silent churches, where the stillness could soothe and calm his rankled spirit.

Knowing the sanctuary wasn’t empty might have deterred him normally, but this evening the notion of a priest’s company seemed a comforting one.

“Sometimes there is no reason. We are all blind in some way…all seeking answers…we go where the spirit compels us to be, where we might find answers. If you want to be here…if some devil has chased you here…stay as long as you wish. If you want to talk, my door is always open. If you don’t…that’s fine too.”

Matt chuckled, removed his glasses, and rubbed his eyes.

“What’s so funny?”

“I’m sorry, Father…I wasn’t laughing at you…you just…sound like someone I use to know.” That and the fact that this priest could not possibly know of the devils Matt carried in his soul. The irony of the words weren’t lost to him.

“No offense taken.” Matt could tell Andrew was smiling. “Given your expression when you came through the door…seeing you smile now…I’d say I’ve done my good deed for the day.”

“I admit…it feels good to laugh.” There had not been many light-hearted moments since finding himself in Havensport. He had not expected to find one here, to share it with a priest of all people.

“You’re new to town.”

“I am.”

“New faces pass through here a lot…sometimes for a day…sometimes a few weeks…some decide to stay and make this home. Can I ask which one are you?”

Matt put the glasses back on, his moment of accepting vulnerability passing, his armor to the world replaced by the crimson lenses being once more in place. “I don’t know how long I’m here for…here on business and I don’t know how long it will take.”

“Mind if I ask what sort of business?” Andrew made note of the hitch in the stranger’s voice. “You don’t have to answer…”

Shaking his head, Matt replied, “It’s not…I’m a lawyer, Father…”

“Ah…I might have guessed.” Small trash bag now tied closed and the last pew cleared, Andrew came to where Matt sat. “It’s your bearing…your careful words.” A lawyer in from out of town probably meant the hashing out of some sort of business deal between companies, or the representation of some out of town individual who called in their own lawyer rather than relying on an unfamiliar local one. What sort of law the young man practiced was unimportant. “Well I wish you and your client success. I have a few more things to do before I call it a day…but if you ever want to talk…share a coffee…I’m here two or three days a week. The others…you’ll like them too…but they’re not all Catholic…”

“Not…?”

“Our flock is too diverse…we try to reach out to everyone. There’s even a rabbi in our group…”

“But this place…?”

“The city was going to tear Saint Alexis…it wasn’t being used except by squatters since the roof caved, and it was unsafe for anyone to be in here…but some last minute fundraising by a bi-partisan group of clergy and donations from townsfolk allowed us to save it. We renovated, cleaned it up, restored it…turned it into a beacon for the lost, the transient, the homeless and hungry…the beggars for whom Alexis is patron. There’s a little bit of everything here…we want everyone, no matter their faith, to feel welcome. It worked for you, didn’t it?”

Another smile, which elicited another from Matt. He did feel welcome here, which was a blessing to find, even if he did not remain in town much longer. Knowing Saint Alexis existed was welcome enough.

“I may take you up on that coffee some time, Father.” It would be nice to have someone to talk to in the way he once talked with Father Lantom. It was less advice Matt wanted and more someone to bounce his questions off of that might lead him to the answers he needed to get through another night, another day.

“I look forward to it, Matthew.” He accepted the man’s offered hand, noted the strength of the grip, and nodded. “I’ll be happy to see you.” He knew he had not eased the troubled man’s burden, but for now, he had done all he could. Perhaps the next time they met, they would have more opportunity to speak. “Stay as long as you’d like…”

Matthew took the offer for what it was and stayed in the still setting, tuning out most of the sounds of the street, the sounds of the diners in the adjacent building being served, finishing their meals with idle chatter, leaving again for whatever small piece of real estate they could claim as theirs for the night. Another pastor, an older man with a slight limp and the stiffness of demeanor that indicated a more rigid view of the world, entered from the street door and went about his business, not speaking with Matt as if respecting his unspoken desire for silent contemplation. The man did not seem as inherently friendly as Andrew had, but when an elderly couple entered as Matt stood to leave, the pastor spoke freely, warmly to them as if he had known them all their lives.

Maybe it’s just me, Matt thought.

He used the church bathroom to shed his street clothes and stashed the bag and his cane upon the roof of the soup kitchen where he knew no one would find it. The church and dining hall were as empty as the streets outside, the evening hour having grown late enough, as he’d enjoyed the peace of Saint Alexis, that he knew his movements would now largely go unnoticed as he leapt from rooftop to rooftop, tracing a path into the eastern heart of Havensport, the area filled primarily with abandoned and run-down homes, warehouses and factories…many of which were still closed as the city struggled against financial depression, the docks and a ship repair yard, all a haven for the poor and a sanctuary for the majority of the city’s criminal elements.

He wasn’t looking for The Hand tonight. He wasn’t looking for the Yakuza. While he asked questions of the criminals he hunted this night…dope pushers, weapons dealers, vandals and thieves…a collection enough that he had the Havensport police hopping throughout the night to pick up the trail of bodies he left behind…his objection for the night was to allow the Murdock devil the chance to appease its need for dispensing pain and justice. When his hunt took him in the vicinity of known Yakuza holdings, he made sure to investigate, to learn the nature of those working there in the hopes of locating Black Sky. He found drug runners, human traffickers, and a brothel, each business silent tonight as the Organization balanced internally the losses they had so recently suffered.

They would come looking for him soon. They had brought him to Havensport after all. They had to know the truth. So long as others were not hurt in the process Matt was okay with being hunted. It would be far easier to fight what came to him then it would be to hunt them night after night.

When he could smell the traces of morning, feel the slight warming of the air against his face, he made one last anonymous call to the police so that someone would pick up the vandal, spray paint on his fingers and sleeves, his can in his hand. It had been a good night, a productive night, and the devil was satisfied.

**

The ghost of her late husband refused to leave her home and seemed only happy when it was tormenting men she brought home after a particularly enjoyable evening’s date. It wasn’t that he blamed her for his death…he’d suffered through lung cancer until he couldn’t any longer, and had, after demands made to the doctors and hospice staff, died in his own bed at the age of 41. His wife, still vibrant and lovely at 32, was too young to wish to spend her life alone, despite her protests to him as he lay dying…that she would never love again…and his insistence that she should. Two years on, however the tables had turned, her mind changed enough to begin dating, her heart changed enough to have fallen for first one fellow, an architect, and a second, a neurosurgeon. Men well off, men with position and power and personal charisma and strength…

Men that the spirit of her late husband had, for reasons unknown to her, taken exception to.

She had not even known his spirit lingered until that first time…when the architect took a tumble down the stairs, fracturing ribs, his clavicle, and his shoulder, when the lights went suddenly dark on him. It had been an outage with no discernable cause. Until it happened a second time, she had excused the incident as one of those freak accidents that sometimes occurred.

The second time, however, the ‘victim’ was unharmed…and continued to return despite continue freak accidents like an exploding wine glass, a tipped pot of boiling water, the falling of a vase in the middle of the night that spread water and tiny glass beads across the foyer floor which led to slipping and falling and a mild concussion that she feared would send her new beau packing.

Undaunted, however, it had been his idea to call in a priest, and then a medium, in the hopes of identifying and dispelling the spirit. Neither effort succeeded in doing anything more than identifying her late husband and scaring away both clergyman and medium from ever wanting to enter the house again. It had been the medium who had suggested John Constantine’s name, and when the call had come regarding the collection of fulgurite her late husband had built up over the year, she had taken it as a sign.

Why else would Constantine have called her if he was not meant to somehow appease the spirit and send it packing before it killed someone?

John, on the other hand, only saw it as providence because it meant the exchange of services for something he needed, something he was good at…or tried to be…and something that was destined to help him save the world…or at least his small corner of it. Of course, by the end of the nearly two hour exorcism ritual, during which he was thrown about the house like a stuffed doll, battered, bruised but never broken, he almost wished the woman HAD asked for money instead of his service. It might have saved her furniture, indeed her home, from a great deal of damage as well, but his success meant that the new couple’s lives were spared further torment by the unhappy spirit and the too modern for his tastes house knew peace at last.

And John, stumbling to his truck, nursing tender ribs and a headache to rival his most fierce hangover, carried under his arm a carefully packed selection of eleven fulgurite samples, at least one of which, he believed, was of the appropriate dimensions for the Black Sky ritual to be completed.

Sleep, there in the truck where he could guard his hard-won treasure, dispelled his weariness but only some of the pain throughout his body. It wasn’t the first time he had been man-handled by a spirit, and he knew it wouldn’t be his last, but it made the drive back to Havensport a long, uncomfortable one. His triumph, and quest for a celebratory drink, were short-lived as Kajan stood at the door of his safe house, arms crossed, a casual expression of waiting and boredom upon his face that morphed slowly into a grin when John decided against backing out of the driveway and turned off the truck’s engine instead.

“Been there the entire time I was gone?” he asked with an ironic bitter note in his voice.

The vampire eyed the box that John retrieved from the passenger seat and shrugged. “I have better things to do than to wait around for you.”

John snorted. He could think of at least a half dozen ‘better things’ all of which were things he would rather not have details about. At least he was confident that his runes and protections on the place had worked, otherwise Kajan would probably have been waiting for him inside.

“Was your outing successful?”

“Better question, mate, is was yours?” If Kajan had not been able, or willing, to secure the blood John required, then the exorcist had no further desire to remain in his company when he could, instead, be sleeping in a decent bed after a hard shot of whiskey.

“I can get you what you want…if you have the facility to store it…”

“I do.” Shouldn’t Kajan have known he’d have storage for blood if he’d asked for it?

Kajan nodded. “By morning then…unless you want it tonight…”

“No…morning is good.” He was not going to need it tonight, and unless Black Sky had been located during his absence, he could not even speculate when it would be needed. Having it on hand, just in case, was all that mattered. “Suppose you want some of mine in return?”

Blood for blood seemed the most likely form of payment a vampire would seek.

“Actually…no…I have something else in mind. Shall we go inside to discuss it?”

“How about we discuss it right here.” To John’s knowledge, the whole ‘vampires can’t enter unless invited’ thing did not appear to be true of those in the Tigh Ard Coven, but he would rather not take any chances. Besides, no one but him entered this place. Safer for his collection that way.

Smirking, Kajan brown curls back from his face with one hand. “As you wish.” He took no offense in John’s paranoia. The demonologist tolerated him and the rest of the Coven when he could have been seeking means of destroying them, or could have tried to already. He hadn’t, and so Kajan preferred to toy with the man’s insecurities and find amusement in his discomfort.

“There is to be an exhibit of Romany art…tools and clothes and more…arriving in Havensport in three weeks. There is something they possess that is mine, and want you to retrieve it for me.”

“Yours?” Understandably skeptical, John continued, “You want me to steal some priceless artifact from a museum exhibit on your word that it somehow belongs to you…?”

“More precisely, my mother. I’ve been following the exhibit for months…interested in their display, hoping it would come near Havesnport so that I may view it in person.”

“You can’t go to it? Why don’t you get this bit of art back yourself…?”

“A necklace…the one my father gave to my mother when they wed,” Kajan corrected. It should not have fallen into non-Romany hands, should not have come across time and dimensions to be claimed by those who would only cheapen its rarity by putting it on display. But it was here, and now Kajan wanted it back. “I intended to retrieve it myself…but the opportunity you presented me in exchanging favors…” He shrugged and grinned. “Why sully myself when I can rely on someone else to make the effort?”

“You mean why risk arrest.”

“You know they would never be able to trace such a theft back to me.” John knew that was true; either the vampire gifts and abilities would allow Kajan to be in and out of the exhibit with his prize without anyone knowing, or else the Coven would cover up any wrong doing. “From what I know of your experience obtaining…unique…items…I suspect you will be equally safe.”

John continued to scowl, despite the backhanded compliment in those words. Maybe Kajan did admire his expertise and abilities to do such a job. Maybe they were words intended to soften him up and nudge him into compliance.

Either way, John needed that blood, and one of the Tigh Ard Coven members seemed his best bet. “Bring me that blood…guarantee it’s what I need…and show me this necklace…give me the details…and I’ll get it back for you.”

How hard could it be?

“I will bring both tomorrow…sleep well, monsieur…may your dreams bear happy fruit.”

Still scowling as Kajan strolled away, his steps both purposeful as well as leisurely, John wondered just what that statement was intended to mean. He doubted it was as innocent as it seemed.

Nothing in John’s life was ever that.

*

Restless, Logan was awake, still in front of the television when Murdock returned home that second night after the lab bust. He felt guilty letting Murdock do all the work of searching for Black Sky, doing battle with the elements of the night, but the man was right; Logan keeping his nose clean, keeping out of the sights of law enforcement as much as possible. It meant that he was bored, with little other than the television and beer to entertain him. Tonight Murdock looked less winded and weary than the last and as he tossed the blind man a beer, he grunted around the neck of his bottle, “Slow night?”

“Rather surprised about that…” Removing his helmet with one hand, Matt caught the bottle in the other without flinching. It was barely cold, but still fit for drinking.

“You kidding? Word is probably spreading like plague that there’s a devil running around taking out criminals…as well as word about the hits we’ve made. Some of the criminally minded are going to lie low and hope to wait us out, others are probably going into early retirement to avoid an enforced one in the state pen or moving to darker pastures. Either way…it’s a good thing if they’re quiet…and it ought to make The Hand, if they’re still around, stick out like a stubbed toe.”

“If they’re still around.” Unable to locate Black Sky, Matt was beginning to believe the boy had been taken out of Havensport the day he arrived, that all of their work to find him had been in vain. If this were Hell’s Kitchen, there would be hundreds of more places to hide. In a place like Havensport, as spread out as it was, Matt didn’t think there could be more than a dozen or so places left for him to clear. Every night he swept the places he and Logan had already been, to be certain the threat had not returned. Faith had been on the prowl as well, had reported both last night and this one that she had stumbled upon no more evidence of the Hand and also increasingly fewer out in the open crimes. Matt’s crusade to clean up his new city appeared to be working more quickly than expected, but the primary mission he had undertaken, not entirely by choice, remained unfulfilled.

Logan shrugged and straightened his posture upon the sofa. “Talked to Constantine…says he’s got most of what we need…is getting the last of it tomorrow…” They still did not know what that entailed, how they were supposed to stop a child bomb from destroying everything around him, but both Logan and Matt were willing to leave John to his part as he was leaving them to theirs. It was frustrating to know that of the four of them, only John had fulfilled his obligation thus far…

But how else did they find the unfindable? Was there a ritual or spell for that too?

“Tomorrow,” Matt muttered, “we all go looking.”

“All of us?”

“All…John too.” If John and Faith went together, and Logan and Matt split up, they could cover most of the remaining buildings and, with luck, find Black Sky…or at least narrow the possibilities down further. Something within Matt was growing more and more dissatisfied and he knew that the only way to appease that something would be to go home. He needed his friends, the only family he had. He needed things to go back to the way they had been.

“You keep your head down…and don’t go starting any brawls…and you should be fine. Can’t stay locked up in here forever.”

“Yeah,” Logan bobbed his head. “I agree with you there.” After the last two lazy days, he could not wait to get back out on the streets.


	20. 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> violence erupts in Havensport yet again...

Days ticked by. Two. Three. Four…and while there were other criminals to stop, those foolish enough not to heed the rumors of the sudden rise of vigilantes throughout Havensport, there were no traces of the Yakuza, no trace of The Hand, and no whispers of a child held against his will in wait of the day he would become something bad men would use to destroy the good in life. Word had come from John, via test message, that he was ready, but that he did have something he needed to take care of at Tigh Ard and would be unavailable one evening depending on the availability of that other client.

Something, the tone of the letter or one of Matt’s additional heightened senses gave him an uneasy feeling, like there was more John was leaving unsaid. But he had no way to make John reply to the questioning return text, and without seeing the man face to face, there was no way to know if John was lying about anything, or nervous about something himself. Logan did not seem concerned, and Faith, when she came each evening for the night’s hunt, also seemed comfortable with whatever John was up to.

Maybe they did not know. Maybe it was nothing serious.

Maybe it stemmed from John’s update about the possibility of immortality, of rising from the dead, that he had dug up in connection with The Hand. The thought seemed too absurd to believe at first, but as Logan pointed out, he could technically die and resurrect, so long as no one separated his head from his shoulders…so why was it so hard to believe that these mystics had found such a key. Perhaps that key was also connected to Black Sky, as John suggested, making it even more imperative to find the child. Each day that passed was one day he came nearer to maturity, and maturity was going to make him nearly impossible to defeat.

With every known Yakuza owned structure investigated now, many raided by the police after a tip off from Matt or Faith, it was beginning to look as though they, and The Hand, were no longer in Havensport. Maybe they had never stopped in the city after all. While their work could never be deemed a waste of time, Matt could think of several other things he should be doing.

Things like going home.

Faith had already come to their apartment and gone again this fifth night, off on her patrol through the city, when Matt heard them. A dozen bikes, the sort built for speed and agility revving and roaring on the southern edge of town. Though some distance away, they were loud enough, particularly to his ears, to be noted.

“Probably nothing,” Logan grunted, lacing his boots. “Weather’s warmer…we get bikers through here all the time…”

Matt scowled. That might be true, but something about the sound made his hair prickle across the back of his neck as he hurried to cinch up the fasteners on his suit and shove the helmet down over his head. “They don’t…sound right…” The way their forms cut the air, the way they slowed as they turned off the main thoroughfare in the direction of the apartment complex. By the time Matt had scrambled up to the roof for a good vantage point, Logan could hear them too. Logan was closing the apartment door when he noted them, stepping into the parking lot when they came into view…slick bikes, black and red, whose riders hunched down over them as though they were one with their vehicles. Movement above, Matt springing into action to chase the five across Havensport’s rooftops. By the time his bike growled to life the dozen, though slowing as they passed the complex, continued their streak through town Logan could follow them from their sound alone.

Unlike Matt, he couldn’t hide the fact that he was following them. There was little traffic at this late hour, and his bike, like theirs, was loud enough to announce its coming. Not that he wanted to hide. Hiding was for cowards. If their slowing within range of him had meant to be a lure into a trap, Logan was ready.

But the notion that their hideout had been discovered did not sit well. Where else, he wondered, could they go? How could anyone possibly have known, when Faith had been the only one…?

The Slayer was in danger.

Matt reached that same conclusion as the crew split into three groups, two turning down side streets that would bring them into the quadrant where Faith had intended to begin her evening. Like Matt and Logan, she varied her hunting pattern every night to avoid being easily tracked, but there were always ways for perceptive men to hunt their prey, and though she came into Havensport from the north, there was no reason to think that someone, anyone, could have been positioned to alert others to her arrival. And if they had connected the three vigilantes to each other, picking off the most vulnerable of them first.

Or using her, the others’ protectiveness, to draw them out, draw them together.

The likelihood of facing an ambush, a trap, heightened Matt’s attention and drove him to run faster.

Faith heard the bikes too, converging upon her position in the cemetery, and had the sense to climb upon the tallest mausoleum to see who her visitors were about to be. These weren’t the black and red ninja sort they had fought together before, these were men…maybe women too…in leather. A force armed with guns that were too large to hide. She frowned, wishing she had Matt’s suit now. Vampires, demons, and blades…those were things she could fight. Guns were another story.

Logan didn’t care about guns, nor did he care about the threat of an accident when he charged his bike into the midst of the four he had followed when the group split. Claws into the wheels of one flipped it end over end, claws into the gas tank of a second and the sparks the impacting metal created set that one ablaze. The driver of the third fired a quick burst in the mutant’s direction; the bullets dug through his leather jacket and lodged in his arm. The reflexive action of turning away from the spray, from the pain sent Logan’s bike skidding out of control, on its side, to broadside the fourth. Both slid into a parked delivery van, pinning the other rider between the bikes and the van.

No killing be damned. Logan roared, cocked back his arm, prepared to shred the other man’s chest, his face through his helmet, anything he could get to.

But the sound of automatic gunfire had drawn the unwanted attention of residents and late night workers along this street, which in turn brought the wail of sirens. The sound of those sirens, the possibility of another arrest were the only thing that spared the stunned biker’s life. With the fourth bike still speeding away, Logan wrenched his own free from the one it had struck, revved its engine to be sure it still ran, and took off, the front wheel wobbling dangerously, in the direction his adversary was traveling.

You wrecked my bike, he thought angrily. Never mind the bullets now dislodged from his shoulder or the devastation in the road behind where claw marks in two bikes would herald his presence there. With luck the damage would be put off to the bullets, some of which had hit those bikes as well, or lodged into a nearby tree, the delivery van, the side of the nearest building.

There was no opportunity to think about the gunfire, the explosion, the wreckage being created several blocks away. Matt’s path, and the turning off of one third of the bikes, brought them together, with Matt being in position just long enough to aim his sticks and throw. Two sticks bounced off the heads of two of the riders, knocking them from their bikes. The uncontrolled vehicles slid, one into path of the third, while the angled throw of the stick allowed it to dislodge the fourth rider.

The assault did not take any of the riders out of play, but with their guns now dropped upon the street, wedged into the holsters upon the bikes, or caught in the tangle of one man’s shredded leather jacket, it was now a fight that Matt felt confident in joining. A somersault off of the wooden awning over the flower shop door dropped Matt squarely in their midst where he could give battle with fists and feet and a solid headbutt to the fellow who dared charge him like a rampaging bull.

These weren’t Hand, he noted at once. Yakuza, yes, judging by the military grade weapons they possessed and the caliper of the bullets that shredded the air, always missing their target as he out maneuvered their trajectories every time. The fights he had been in over the last few nights, lone criminals of a common street variety, did not provide him the same challenge. This was the fight the devil had been craving. This was the fight that reminded him he was alive.

Without his three companions, the single biker Logan followed wove back to merge with the central group, the five reaching the cemetery by the time Logan caught up to them on his barely drivable bike. Two of the five dismounted and turned on him, apparently not caring that a second barrage of bullets would draw the sirens to them here as well.

Maybe they figured it would be over by the time the police reached them. If so, they didn’t know Logan very well at all.

But seeing the other three, guns at the ready, begin cautiously stalking between the tombstones, looking for the Faith, Logan couldn’t help but ask himself where the hell was Mudock?

Three to one. Well those odds could have been worse thought Faith from her mausoleum perch. Logan was enjoying a good punch fest with the two who had dared to tangle with him. Now out of bullets without the time to change clips, the were forced to throw punches at a man with a metal skeleton, and though Logan could have killed them with one eruption of claws, he seemed determined to honor his word to Matt.

Of course, with a metal punch that could splinter ribs, crush skulls, twist limbs into unusable forms, not killing anyone was easier said than done.

When they were near her position, Faith dropped down upon the shoulders of one of them and attempted to dislodge his weapon from his hands. One of his companions fired as he turned, and to his surprise mowed down his own man. As he fell, Faith dropped and rolled, her direction knocking the shooter off of his feet; he uttered a muffled scream as she twisted around and brought her shoulder squarely up into his groin. The third man, prepared to fire, but his bullets went wild, spraying into the trees, into headstones, and ricocheting off a short iron fence to bounce back and catch Logan in the ear as Matt’s sticks simultaneously struck the shooter in the head. Logan growled.

“Watch it, bub,” he snarled, his hand to his bleeding ear that was already healing. That healing did not erase the ringing inside of his head, however…and that ringing did not drown out the singing of distant sirens.

“Hide the bike…take cover.” Faith was already pulling Matt in the direction of an abandoned construction site at the western edge of the cemetery. So long as Logan’s bike was not found at the scene, there was nothing this time, to her knowledge, to tie him to the fight…except maybe his DNA on the clothing of the men he had fought. But Logan had learned his lesson, had invested in gloves now, though he refused a helmet. That was going too far.

They might find Faith’s DNA however, but would they really think that one woman could take down five men with machine guns? Wasn’t the most obvious answer, that they had been fighting amongst themselves, some sort of gang war that had left casualties on two streets and ended within the cemetery…the most logical one?

Besides, she was a vampire slayer…not a crime fighter. That wouldn’t make much sense to anyone, would it? Anyone except family, that was.

Logan dragged the bike a few feet, thought better of the marks it would leave upon the pavement or in the manicured lawn, and picked it up as best he could. He was stronger than most men, resilient and determined, but the bike was still awkward to carry, especially at a fast enough speed to stay out of the headlights of the distant police cars. Still he made it to the nearby arm of the aqueduct system that carried rain spillage from Havensport’s streets out to the sea and, with another growl of reluctant annoyance, allowed the bike to slide down the concrete embankment. It caught in a tangle of debris at the bottom, its rear tire miring in the muddy water that meandered by, maybe six or eight inches of it. He balled his fists to see it but the arrival of the police made him abandon the bike and duck behind shrubbery before he was seen.

That damn well better be there by the time he was able to return for it, or Murdock was going to pay for a replacement…or all of the necessary repairs…out of the lawyer fees Logan owed him.


	21. 21

The scaffolding and wooden barricade around the open gaping trench were years’ old…rusted warped, and, judging by the warning tape, and locks upon the small trailer at one end of the project. The plans to install a subway rail beneath Havensport had been born nearly two decades ago. It would have been a short local series line that were meant to connect to the above ground rail for service to neighboring cities. But not long after construction had begun, the city’s funding had fallen through and the subway line was abandoned. They had apparently chosen to leave the site as it was, perhaps out of hope that the project would be resumed, perhaps because it was deemed too expensive to fill it in. Transients sometimes holed up here, runaways and drug users, but as the infrastructure grew more unsteady with the passage of time, few tried it. There were areas now where rains had caused the earthen sides to wash in, where the concrete walls had cracked and buckled against the strain of the shifting earth and Faith recalled at least three incidents of people being buried in mudslides here.

It appeared, however, that someone had been here recently, as she and Matt scrambled over the edge and flattened themselves against the walls, hopefully well out of sight of anyone who might think to look here in the investigation of the suited men filled with bullet holes and broken bones. Some of the mud from previous slides had been cleared away and cement stones had been put into place as a functional staircase case to the bottom.

Matt’s head cocked as he listened, his jaw twitching with each minute sound and sensation he detected.

“There’s a light…”

“Yes.” It was far away, below them, within a tunnel that Matt had not previously been aware of. There had been no mention of this location in the documents he had found, so he had never thought to investigate it. Though he detected life below, the movement of at least a dozen bodies, there was nothing to suggest that this location had any connection to the Yakuza…or The Hand…except…

Logan dropped over the lip of the pit to land on the ledge, startling Faith who turned, swinging. But he had landed on the other side of Matt, well out of her reach, and Murdock, at least, was not surprised by his arrival.

“He’s here.”

“Black…?” started Logan, his voice a hiss over Matt’s rough whisper to avoid being heard by the distant cops.

Matt knew it, as surely as he knew it was dark around him. That one heartbeat, the fast flutter of a child approaching the cusp of puberty, strong and vital, was far away, somewhere in the bowels of those tunnels, an ideal place that, when shielded by thick layers of earth, would make him, and his guards, difficult to detect. His scowl deepened and his face tipped down towards the light he could not see. “And so is she…”

“She?”

Logan didn’t ask who she was, left that question to Faith. He sniffed the air for a trace of her, but there was nothing. She was too far away, downwind within the tunnels, where her scent was blocked from his detection. But he took Matt’s word that she was there.

There was someone else too, a faintly familiar presence Matt thought he had met before, one of unbelievable strength. Just as the child was different, and the woman he had detected at the docks the night Black Sky had arrived.

But she was not Yakuza, not even Japanese…so what, for the love of God, was she doing here?

When Logan started to take a step to go lower into the chasm, Matt’s hand square upon his chest had the strength to hold him back. “Not yet,” he whispered. “We call Constantine…and we wait.”

“I’ll call him,” Faith offered over Logan’s low warning growl.

“Get your hand off me…”

“You’re not going in there…not yet. We’ve found him…this may be our only chance…” And though Matt only detected those dozen or so individuals, how many more might be deeper within the tunnels, beyond his ability to hear them? Those closest to the child would undoubtedly be Hand, the highest caliber combatants they could find and assign. This was not going to be an easy fight. If they were going to do this, if they were going after the boy, he wanted John here to do what needed to be done the fist time.

Matt did not think they would get another shot.

“He’s on his way.”

Matt nodded but he wondered, listening above and below, how the demonologist was going to get past the police.

John, not having been warned of the police presence, was wondering the same thing. Trench coat turned up against the cool night air and well-worn medical bag of supplies in his hand, his presence in the cemetery would undoubtedly be questioned. Because his face was not well known in Havensport yet, he doubted any of the officers on duty would recognize him, but someone would definitely question him, given the number of bodies strewn about where the officers and EMT’s worked.

Wanting to fob his way through any confrontation, John snatched the first bouquet of reasonably fresh flowers from one of the first graves he passed, he started trekking across the grounds, minding his own business but, like any curious passerby would do, paying enough curious attention to the police business to seem curious.

Logan’s work, most likely. Logan and Faith.

John had yet to have any reason to think Murdock was involved.

“You!” John swore beneath his breath as one of the officers shouted at him with a pointed finger.

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you it isn’t polite to point?” he quipped, trying to sound exasperated without sounding overly so. A fine line to walk but one John was used to. He’d been an actor his whole life…despite the times his tongue got him into trouble.

“What are you doing here?”

“Visiting the dead, mate…what does it look like?” He waved the flowers between them.

“At this hour?”

“Passing through town…can’t stick around until morning so wanted to stop in on my way through.”

While the explanation sounded plausible enough, and John’s attire and bag suggested traveling salesman…probably selling snake oil remedies, the policeman thought bitterly, the situation just didn’t sit well with him. “With that?” The officer pointed again, this time at John’s bag, hoping to find it was filled with illegal substances for which he could arrest this trespasser.

His being a dealer and meeting his clients in the cemetery was a possibility too.

John shrugged. “My truck doesn’t lock…I’m not leaving my valuables in there to be jacked while you all are wanking each other off over a bunch of bodies…”

Perhaps not the wisest choice of words, as the other man growled and reached for the case. “Not bodies…only one…so far anyhow.”

That meant they were all still alive save one. Murdock’s contribution to whatever had happened here, no doubt, since he had made Logan swear that he would not kill anyone. John jerked the bag out of the man’s reach, not interested in explaining the unusual collection within…particularly the bag of still chilled blood.

“Franklin…get over here and leave the man to his mourning.”

That familiar voice was Tigh Ard family, but exactly who, John wasn’t sure. With the speaker too far away to be seen clearly, and John not wanting to reveal his connections to anyone…especially if it could come back to bite him, or the speaker, in the ass later, it was best he never know who had come to his rescue. Franklin growled, muttered, “Watch yourself,” and headed back to the crime scene. John breathed a sigh of relief, continued several paces further into the darkness, towards the western edge of the cemetery where the old subway line construction site was located, and when he found a grave that wasn’t already adorned with flowers, he squatted and put those he carried upon the headstone.

“No offense, luv,” he said to the woman interred beneath his feet. “I’m sure you understand.”

He stayed there, one hand upon the stone, the other upon the grass that covered the dead, making note of the police activity until he was sure that none of them were paying any attention to him anymore. When he deemed it safe, he stood up, hesitated a few more minutes in case his movement drew attention, and then, with bag in hand, strode quickly to the place where Faith had said she would be. He slipped under the protective barricades, stopped at the edge of the chasm, and looked down.

Faith…Logan…and who the hell was that? Another late coming player he imagined, annoyed at being left in the dark on the opposite end of the plan, but not annoyed enough to turn around. He had a job to do, and that meant going below.

He slid down the embankment and ended on the ledge between Faith and the fellow in the mask and red suit.

“You have everything we need?”

John couldn’t help it. He stared. Hard.

What in the name of the divine and the damned was a blind man doing in that get up…here of all places? What sort of craziness was this.

“He’s talking to you, bub,” growled Logan, itching to go into the belly of the beast and do what they had come to do.

“I know that…but he’s…” Of course they knew that, he reminded himself as he cut his statement short. No point in stating the bloody obvious. “Got it all…”

“And you’re ready to do this?”

Are you, he thought. Aloud he said, “I’ll need some time to set up…so someone needs my back…or my front…to give me some uninterrupted space…”

“You’ll have it.” Part of Matt’s priority was getting the boy out of this place, but if they wanted to disarm Black Sky’s potential danger, their first priority had to be giving John the chance to perform his ritual. “How close do you have to be?”

“Close as you can get me…the closer the better.” That would make the effort that much more dangerous, for all of them, but John knew from experience that long range spell casting was less effective than up close and personal. He had to be right in the face of evil to make this work, to give it the best shot at success.

Matt nodded. “Then follow me.” He could lead them to where the boy was, could get them to that room, but how much interference they were likely to encounter between this ledge and that room was an unknown. Whatever the case, he knew it wasn’t going to be easy.

Such things never were.


	22. 22

“Wait…”

John’s admonition came barely in time to keep Matt from going over the edge, and the man in red turned to glower at him with annoyance. At least, John assumed he was glowering, judging by the downturn of his mouth, since there were no eyes visible behind the red lenses. Why would there be? Murdock didn’t need to be able to see where he was going, after all…which John was still struggling to come to terms with.

“We’ll need these.”

From his bag, he removed the two remaining o’mamori, scowling as he stood up again.

“What are those?”

John ignored Logan’s growl. “O’mamori…prayers of protection against Iwai. Thought there was only gonna be three of us…” One was already hung about his neck, visible beneath his loosely bound blood red tie. In his other hand was a small vial of blood. “By invoking its name, anyone wearing one will more likely be protected…”

“You three wear them.” Logan growled again when Matt began to protest. “Regeneration, remember? If anyone needs protecting, it’s you three…with lives to lose.”

Faith had already snatched on from John’s hand and pulled it over her head, freeing her hair from its entanglement.

“This will help…maybe it will be enough…” Finger over the opened end of the vial, John tipped it and then drew a Japanese symbol of protection upon Logan’s forehead with a short murmured Japanese phrase. The Wolverine didn’t mind blood, but he still shuddered at the contact, as if that blood symbol had done something to him that he could not name.

Matt’s nose crinkled. “Blood.” He scowled and shrank away from John’s hand at his attempt to mark him as well. John turned instead to Faith, who willingly accepted any magical mojo that would get her home alive to Jessie this night.

“There’s more where that came from. Don’t ask. It’s necessary…and no, I’m not telling you what I had to do to get it.” He frowned at Matt’s grimace. “Look…we do this if we want it to work…or we go in halfcocked and we all die. Your choice.”

“Just do it, Red,” Faith encouraged, taking the o’momari from Matt’s hand and putting it around his neck, holding him in place through that action so that John could leave the mark upon his cheek.

As if he could feel the question of eyes he could not see, John shrugged. “Has to be on your skin…and I’m guessing you’re not taking that off just now.”

“No.” Maybe it was some strange power in the marking or John’s word. Maybe it was the effect of having blood, human blood, willfully drawn upon his skin. Whatever it was, Matt felt dizzy and momentarily sick and had to brace himself with one hand against the earthen wall until the sensation passed.

“Red?”

Matt shook his head. “I’m okay.” The feeling had passed now, or at least enough of it had that he could begin their descent into hell. This time he did not give them notice. They would follow him or they wouldn’t. Faith was the first to follow, one hand outstretched to John, encouragement and assistance should he needed it. When Logan refused to budge until John began to climb, the blonde man muttered under his breath and went down. He really needed a bloody cigarette now.

There were no guards at the bottom of the trench, nothing there to discourage intruders except for the steepness of the earth walls and the danger of their collapse that existed to anyone daring enough to risk it. There was a draft blowing from within, carrying the hundreds of tiny clues that spoke of air recycled and redistributed but which indicated that, as he believed, this underground group of tunnels had at least one other exit. He could find it, if he was given enough time to do so, but despite John’s protective amulet against his chest, Matt had the strong sense of entering a tomb as he stepped across the threshold from the outside world to the underworld.

“Stay close.” It was an unnecessary thing to say, given that they were bunched closely enough together that they would collide if Matt was to suddenly stop. About ten feet in front of them, a metal grate blocked their progress, a circular construct from roof to floor, wall to wall, of the sort that would be used to strain large objects out of rushing water. Perhaps that had been its original intent, but with two identical drain pipes sunk into the earth on both sides of the tunnel, plenty big enough to handle any influx of water except, perhaps, from some catastrophic flood, the grate wall served some other purpose now.

Allowing the passage of fresh air, Matt imagined, tuning his senses to any structural anomaly in the grate that would indicate a door or an entrance of some other kind. “There’s wires…” Before his assessment was complete, however, the silence was broken by erupting claws and the sharp twang of metal upon metal as Logan cut through whatever mechanism held the door closed. A hand on Faith and one on John, Matt ducked low, pulling them with, as some sort of darts shot from the wall ahead of them to pass through the now open entryway, only narrowly missing Logan as Matt’s movement suggested he lurch sideways out of the line of fire.

“We’re not all immortal, Chops…”

“We’re wasting time.” Logan shrugged. It was true that he had not considered any sort of trap being present, but he was right too. Standing here looking for the easy way in was only going to give their quarry a chance to escape. Like Matt, he knew there had to be another way in and out of this place. If it was as big as he sensed it was, a single exit and entry would be suicide to those who could be trapped here in a collapse of the mud outside.

Nothing else, no further projectiles or human adversaries emerged from either side of the T passage before them. Matt cocked his head, listening as he got to his feet for the sound of that one rapid heartbeat, the heart of their target which had, it seemed, increased its thundering rhythm, the pulse of fear.

“This way…he knows we’re here.”

John began to protest, but the others were already moving to the left. Great, he thought, clutching his bag tighter, wishing he had brought a gun with him. At least then he’d stand a fighting chance against sword wielding ninjas.

*

The boy slid from the side of his bed, the nearly ever present chains making the motion difficult and the stance awkward, making his effort to reach one hand to the man almost always with him a painful one. The cup of blood, congealed and discolored now, untouched since it had been delivered, spilled from the nightstand onto the cold, damp cement floor, sloshing over his small feet without is notice.

He was supposed to drink it. So far, he never had. Creel’s efforts to dispose of it, to deceive the handlers, had resulted in an ineffective beating and the installation of cameras in this private bedroom to be certain that Creel never interfered again.

‘Creel…they’re here…help me…’

Creel heard the young voice in his head, the only place he ever heard it, and it was the boy’s tension, in addition to the pleading use of a name he had never uttered before, that brought Creel to his feet. The child did not seem frightened, not filled with the horror dreams that had come to him every night for the past week.

Whoever ‘they’ were, Creel was not about to let anyone get their hands on his ward, harm him in the way he grew more convinced each day that their handlers’ intended. Why else try to force a child to drink blood?

Almost as disturbing was the minute changes, day by day, that suggest the boy’s resistance to that drinking was weakening.

This was the time.

It didn’t take much. Hands molding to the same cold iron of which the chains were forged as he grabbed them, it was an easy task to yank and snap first the shackles that held the boy’s arms, and then those that held his legs, freeing him from those bonds. If the metamorphoses of Creel’s skin frightened him, he did not show it, choosing instead to cling around the man’s neck, his legs around the man’s torso, as Creel threw open the door. Two guards there, unsuspecting and unprepared as the room they protected was soundproof to all save the monitoring cameras, they stood no chance against the towering hulk of a man with metal skin who burst through the doorway. The swinging door knocked out the first, and the second screamed in agony as the punch he threw ended in the agony of shattered bones from fist to shoulder. He fell to the ground screaming, a short lived sound that ended beneath Creel’s heavy boot.

The boy said nothing but kept his face burrowed against Creel’s neck. Without lifting his face, when Creel hesitated in the corridor, wondering which way to affect their escape, for escape it had to be, his silent voice said, “That way.”

Creel knew. And he obeyed.


	23. 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2 new faces...and one old familiar one...arrive on the scene

The first hint of trouble came with the arrival of two sentries armed with katanas, but Matt heard their approach from far enough away that he motioned his companions back and dispatched the guards with a quick series of blows that left them bleeding and unconscious upon the corridor floor. Logan wondered fleetingly, as he and Faith dragged the bodies into a recessed doorway, why Murdock needed them here at all. It was the first time he got to watch the blind man in action, really watch him…in reality not on a television screen, and he had to marvel not only at his style, his form, his strength, but also his ability to take a punch, to pick himself up and keep going when most men would have given up. If not for his claws and adamantium skeleton, Logan wouldn’t want to go up against Matt in a fight…regardless of his regenerative capabilities.

Maybe someone could infuse the lawyer with Logan’s regenerative powers. That alone would make the man damn near unstoppable.

The question of his and Faith’s usefulness however was answered with the arrival of the next three assailants, Yakuza soldiers still, not Hand operatives, but skilled enough that it gave each of them an opponent to put down. Almost too easy, but Logan was not going to let his guard down because of it. Such fights always started off too easy…and somewhere ahead of him, Deathstrike awaited. He wondered if she knew he was here, knew of his involvement. With the claw marks left at the chop shop, how could she not?

Matt chose not to address the cracking of skulls and the rattling breath of a man with broken ribs as they pushed further into the maze, with John picking his way between the fallen bodies with only the slightest reaction of distaste. The three weren’t dead…not yet…but without help, they might be soon enough. It wasn’t the time to call in the police…not yet. That would be inviting a massacre he did not want to be responsible for.

Maybe these Yakuza were immortal to…as John had speculated the Hand might be.

The sounds of combat brought others, alone, or in groups of two or three, but with none yet being obviously Hand, Matt fretted over the obvious trap they were being pulled into. He was running out of detectable heartbeats, detectable breathing patterns, save for the boy, two powerful threads…one that traveled with the boy and another that moved away from them, deeper into catacomb of tunnels, and a hand full of others scattered here and there scurrying about in response to some alert of their presence that Matt did not detect or…he paused and listened…in pursuit of the man and the boy.

Why?

Why was that man, with the boy in tow, swinging and taking down any who crossed his paths?

An unexpected ally?

The opportunity to consider that, however, was aborted by their eruption into a wide cavern with broad tunnels, of the sort where underground rails would have been laid had the project been completed. Correction, Matt mused. Rails did run to the left, in the direction of Havensport’s heart. That would have made this cavern the boarding platform…if not for the gaping hole in the earth directly in front of them. A hole who’s creation was in process, judging by the winch and pulley system rigged over the hole and the large steel bucket suspended from it which could be swung to the side in order to allow its contents to be emptied into the series of half-sized gondolas lined up upon the track. Far below he could hear it, the sounds of shovels and picks, an unending process of digging into the earth.

“What the hell…”

Logan’s question was buried beneath a barrage of bodies dropping from above, while other scaled their way out of the hole, eighteen in all, Matt counted from the whispering sounds of their feet upon the ground. But he heard no breath, heard no heartbeats, and even the normal heat signature a man gave off was absent. It was as if they were not truly there, and yet the sounds of upon the ropes they used to arrive and the sounds of their feet proved they were there, alive or not.

Immortality at the cost of their lives? Was that how it worked?

“I can’t…” he started, an unusual flash of panic clawing into his chest.

Logan sensed it too, smelling a faint trace of suspended death he had encountered before…before any understanding of the Hand’s true nature was revealed. He remembered them now. He could kill them…and they’d eventually return…but it was better that than the alternative. Would it count as killing them if they were already dead, and were likely to return? Not in his opinion. Maybe, he thought with the accompanying eruption of claws, decapitation would work on them too. It sure as hell wouldn’t hurt to try. He yowled and leapt straight for the three nearest him.

This was going to be fun.

“Logan! No!” But the sound of claws slicing through skin gave Matt an idea. And another pair of sounds gave him another. “Do it now, John!” Whatever John intended to do, they weren’t going to get any closer to Black Sky at this stage to try it. They had to hope they were close enough for it to work now. Focusing on the sounds of weapons cutting through air, the movement of that air as blades and sticks and tiny thrown stars assailed him was going to be his only means of combatting this set of foes.

Back against the wall, John ducked out of the way of a knife knocked off its intended course by Logan’s claws. Again he was watching Murdock fight like a boxer…no, bloody well better than any boxer John had ever seen, with an accuracy and precision that many men with sight would be unable to match. That watching came to an end with Matt’s command, however, although how he was going to manage a spell, and stay alive, in the midst of this chaos he could only guess.

“Keep his back, Slayer!”

That was Logan, and in a burst of motion, the Slayer leapfrogged over the back of an assailant and landed directly in front of John, becoming his shield against attackers and projectile weapons. As good as she was, he thought with a grumble as he drew out the stoppered iron bowl of blood and the well protected length of fulgurite, he would rather have the blind man at his back.

He broke the seal around the fist-sized bowl, exposing the blood to the air as he opened it, and thrust one end of the fulgurite into the three inches of blood and began to chant.

*

“Get in there…see what you can do to help…get the asset and get out, understood?” The man in the suit stood at the precipice of the dig site, watching the other man already scaling the slippery sides with well-practiced ease. He wanted to go himself, but it had taken some fancy word work to convince the police to look the other way; so long as he stayed where the police could see him, he did not expect any further problems. Besides, he wasn’t exactly dressed for such a climb, and he knew when he was outgunned. This sort of work was right down the other man’s alley, and he was clearly itching to get to it.

The other man’s expression was more of a smug smirk then a grin. He was eager for this alright. There was little call for his skills, and when the need arose, he was more than happy to get down to business. “Yes sir…”

“And Clint…”

The climber looked up, hesitating in his descent, adjusting the quiver upon his back with one hand.

“Bring the others back alive…”

That was always the mission. Keep the others like himself alive. Bring them into the fold. If he could. “I’ll do my best…”

*

It was not easy to recite the ancient Japanese phrases, pieced together by Naoko, while constantly having to duck away from flying weaponry and the occasional foot or fist that tried to circumvent Faith’s protection. Logan too had moved nearer to John, leaving a trail of bloody bodies behind him as he confronted one Hand assassin after another. No kill order be damned. In his eyes, they weren’t really dead, and as outnumbered as they were, he wasn’t taking any chances on their assailants getting back up again any time soon. Hopefully it would take them long enough to get back to their feet that the three of them would have done what they came to do, grabbed the kid, and gotten the hell out of Dodge.

If Murdock had a problem with that, he could take it up with Logan later…after they survived this fight.

When man and boy burst into the cavern, though, Matt’s furious fight was derailed, less by their arrival than by the sudden squeal of “Creel!” within his head.

That name struck him as hard as the foot aimed at his head did and knocked him to his knees.

He had never seen the man. He did not know his face, his scent, or anything more about him than a name, a name bathed in the blood of a death that had come after one fateful fight.

A death that was not his fault, but would be forever tied to that name just as Matt himself was tied to it.

It couldn’t possibly be the same man…too many years had passed…but what were the odds of his crossing paths with another of the same name?

The sound of that unspoken word brought forth an eruption of long-buried child-like fury, and Matt rolled away from the assassin he had been fighting in favor of rushing headlong towards the man and boy less than ten yards away.

A small voice told him to save the child.

A louder voice shouted its demand for blood vengeance for the death of Jack Murdock from a man who bore that unfortunate familiar name.

The boy’s shout warned Creel of an incoming knife in time for him to duck and get both himself and the child out of the projectile’s path. He assumed the blade had been meant for him, not for the boy these people were trying so hard to protect and groom for some unknown purpose. He shifted the youngster onto his back, small arms and legs wrapped tight around him, as he assessed the situation in a quick glance. There was little obvious clues to tell him what the four strangers were after, save for the boy’s previous warning that someone was here for him. If these four were it, well the ninjas were doing a decent job of, if not killing the intruders, at least keeping them busy. They ought to be occupied long enough for Creel and the boy to get clear of their prison unnoticed.

The one on the farthest side of the room, repeatedly chanting words in Japanese that Creel could not understand, was the obvious threat. He knew this by the way the child trembled and clung tighter, whimpers and pained moans coming his throat, the first sounds Creel had ever heard him make beyond breathing. He had no weapons to throw, only his fists to use, but they were strong fists, a boxer’s fists, and if he could get past the woman to reach the chanter…not the fellow with the deadly metal claws…he could stop John from uttering another single word.

His determined strides brought him directly into the rushing path of the red devil. The swing that caught him unprepared along the side of his face carried shades of another such blow, but Creel was not one for nostalgia, particularly not in moments of combat. He roared his annoyance and defiance, dislodged the boy with a clipped, “Stay low…stay back,” and entered the fray with the furious devil.

“Don’t fight…don’t fight…”

How many times had that small, frightened, unspoken voice repeated those same two words? Did anyone else hear them, hear the plea behind them, the fear and desire for peaceful passage that colored each syllable, the weight of a pain beyond anything Matt had experienced. Matt’s hesitation, his natural inclination towards resolution instead of death, allowed Creel the crushing blow to the side of his head that knocked Matt flat and produced a loud ringing in his ears.

“Get the boy!”

Faith would rather have remained where she was, letting John finish his spell with as much safety as she could offer him. But Logan was right. Their priority was the boy who, crouched against the wall behind Creel, was beginning to emit a deep, luminescent purple light, like the glow of a black light in a pitch black room. A fear response, the prelude to an attack. It did not matter which. Faith had to stop it, or slow it down enough for John’s spell to take effect.

But John had little confidence in the spell now, and without Faith to protect his right flank, he felt vulnerable and helpless. The chant had been repeated enough times, in a manner he was certain was accurate and correct, without affect, that John was convinced his efforts were for naught. The unearthly glow surrounding the boy in a hazy fog could not be a good sign, and John, determined to prevent what he deemed to be the result of the spell’s failure, chose to do the unthinkable.

He ducked low out of the way of another projectile and after setting the bowl of blood on the floor, the fulgurite still propped up within it, rummaged through his bag for the most potent weapon he had. Keeping the Killing Stone cupped in the thick cloth that wrapped it, John judged where everyone else in the room stood in relationship to the boy…and aimed it at the child’s head.

No one else in the room knew what the stone did, except, perhaps, the child who opened his mouth and gave rise to an unearthly howl that successfully penetrated the ringing in Matt’s ears. Not even John knew for certain how it worked. Matt rolled to the side to witness what was happening, aware of a deadly shift in the atmosphere, and though he could not see any of it, a rush of ice pierced through layers of suit, skin, and muscle as what seemed to be a piece of the abyss flew through the air in the child’s direction.

The following series of events became a tangle that his senses had difficulty unravelling. The hurled bit of void struck one of the Hand, a man unaware of its movement, square along the exposed portion of his face. There was a shriek like the skidding of train wheels upon metal rails…and then he was gone, disintegrated into a dull gray mist of ash that scattered on the breeze left by the momentum of his movement. With Faith having disengaged her position at John’s side, Creel saw his opening, and though he took it, aiming his fist at John’s lowered head, Logan, pulled around by the scream of a man no longer present, slashed out with the claws of one extended arm. Creel braced himself, absorbed the tiny cuts and the very nature of the adamantium from which those claws were made, at the same moment that his body was struck by, and absorbed a much deadlier substance.

The claws of Logan’s other hand skittered harmlessly across Creel’s now adamantium skin.

Horrified at what his actions had just created, as John immediately realized that this man who could absorb the characteristics of the materials he touched had now become the living embodiment of the Sessho-seki. He would either die a quick, horrible death or become something that none of them could stop. John was not taking any chances with finding out which that would be.

“Don’t touch him!” John shouted, his thunderous cry in the cavern drowning out the sounds of Faith and Matt fighting, one towards the boy, the other now towards John and Creel. But the child, the instant the Killing Stone bounced off the head of its first victim into Creel’s bare arm and fell to the ground to skitter into the bits of rock and dust littering the cavern, began his sprint towards Creel himself, easily eluding the Slayer’s hands thanks to a coordinated attack by two of the still standing members of the Hand.

Self-preservation in that moment kept her from pursuit.

Forced backwards to avoid Creel as the large man staggered against the war waging within his body, John lost his footing and fell onto his ass, striking his head against the wall. His foot clipped the bowl, tipping it so that the blood within spilled across the floor. The child, the glow of his aura intensified as his level of stress increased, froze, one hand upon Creel’s violently trembling but stationary form, and stared at the length of fulgurite lying within the crimson spread, absorbing the viscous liquid into its crystalline skin.

The glow, the energy of it, spiked, the pull between the kami and the blood offering too strong at this close proximity for the spirit to resist. Matt sensed it, the weakening of the host body as it struggled to draw the devouring darkness out of Creel all while being torn asunder in the pull towards a blood gift of a purer nature than any the Hand had thus far offered.

It would work. The kami would leave the boy. Black Sky would be contained. But in doing so, both the child and Creel would die.

His inner war was short-lived. Matt could not let that happen. There had to be a way to save that boy. And that man, Creel…whoever he was…of obvious importance to the distraught boy…did not deserve to die this way. If the healing kami could spare his life, reverse the effects of that frigid, dark stone, then there was no other choice.

He snatched up the nearest object his fist could close around and threw.

The blood red fulgurite shattered into a thousand glassy teeth.

The cavern filled with a flash of ultraviolet light, the heat of which seared Matt’s face and blinded everyone else in the room. Everyone, it appeared, except Matt and Creel. The ground trembled, the walls convulsed, the entire room and the tunnels beyond threatening to collapse around them.

In that single instant, Creel, still reeling and struggling not to succumb that which, by right, should have killed him already, snatched up the boy and began an awkward run towards the right stretching tunnel. Faith threw herself on top of John, expecting to protect the exorcist from threats they could no longer see. A shadow from Logan’s past, a familiar collection of scents that made every hair across his body stand on end, flitted out from the left tunnel long enough to make itself known, and Logan, drawn to exterminate an enemy that only he…and perhaps now Creel…might be able to put down…took off after her, shouting, “Get John out of here!” as he barreled through the now pitch black room.

He did not see in that instant, what came next, for as Matt lurched to his feet, the flash and following darkness barely affecting his ability to fight, pushed to his feet, he was met by the bull-stanced charge of one of the Hand. Head down, he caught Matt in the ribs, knocking him backwards over the lip of the chasm, where the sound of workmen had long ago ceased.

An arrow out of nowhere sliced across Creel’s shoulder, but as man and boy stumbled into the darkness around the corner out of sight, the hands of Hand that reached for him dissolving into dust when they did, it was impossible to say if the bolt had struck home.

A second arrow caught Matt’s assailant in the back of the skull and sent him tumbling with the Daredevil into the abyss.


	24. 24

Faith didn’t see him fall. As she struggled to get John on his feet and moving towards the door where they had entered, where the stranger with the bow picked off Hand assassins one at a time, she was only vaguely aware that Logan had gone in pursuit of someone else, the boy perhaps since she did not see where he and his guardian had gone and had not seen the other woman’s brief appearance. When she looked back, her balance and footing compromised by the quaking earth, it was to a room empty of all but the bodies of the dead or unconscious or otherwise incapacitated. Believing that both Logan and Matt had gone after the prize they had come for, unaware of the aborted spell process or what the results of their efforts might have been, Faith had stuck to her current mission: getting John out alive.

“The Sessho…” John slurred, finding speech difficult through the pain at the back of his skull. He’d only barely managed to grab his bag by the handle as Faith had dragged him along and now that he was supported on the other side by the unknown archer, held fast between them, with was no hopes of turning around, even if his jello legs would support him.

“No chance,” said the archer, doing his best to run now, appreciating that the dark haired woman was able to keep up with him. He had no idea what John was talking about, had not seen the stone or what it could do, but so long as the threat of being trapped here was a real one, he wasn’t going to go back.

It was bad enough that he had lost the one man into that pit and he wasn’t going to be able to forgive himself if that devil had died on his watch.

He didn’t breathe easier until they reached the open air, where his suited companion waited halfway down into the ditch hand stretched down to help John to the surface. In the distance, the police had scattered to the safety of their cars while the earth shook around them. Not a violent shaking here, but enough that the moist earth walls of the ditch were gradually beginning to give way.

“Where are the others?”

“Someone else was there…one of them went after her…” Clint assumed the pursued had been a her, based on the swish of long dark hair he had glimpsed before Logan had sprinted away.

“And the other?” One strong pull, aided by a push from behind by Faith, and John was back on more stable ground, lying on his side, panting and patting the pockets of his trench coat in the hopes of finding a cigarette. Faith scurried up after him.

Clint shook his head before finishing his own ascent. He did not verbally want to admit he had let a man die, that he might have contributed to his death with that one well aimed shot, not when the two they had just rescued did not know that detail.

“Black Sky?” The man in the suit looked from Faith to John. “Did you disarm it?”

“How should…” John began.

Faith cut him off with a slicing motion of her hand as she glowered at the suit. She had grown more trusting of others over the years in Havensport, and this pair had, it seemed, just saved their lives, but that did not mean they were on the same team. Hell, the fact that they had been followed here, that these two knew about Black Sky, made them suspicious enough. “Who the hell are you? We don’t owe you any explanations…”

“I think I tagged Creel…but it might not have taken,” Clint said, interrupting the counterproductive argument about to erupt. His boss was a man accustomed to being obeyed, a man who preferred not to argue, but with tensions high enough already, the two he had brought with him out of the depths were not likely to do anything but argue.

The distinctive sound of the tracker tipped arrow deflecting off of a metal surface still rang in his ears, but there was a chance it had imbedded in the man’s meager clothing, or even the child’s.

“Good.” He tapped on the earpiece he wore, gave directions to someone not in the immediate vicinity, and offered Faith his hand.

“Phil. Coulson.”

“What are you doing here?”

“The same thing you are…trying to prevent a disaster.” The ground where Coulson stood shifted beneath his feet and he hopped quickly to one side. “We should go…”

“They’re going to be trapped down there!”

“There are other ways out of those tunnels, Mr. Constantine. I’ve got extraction teams waiting at each of them…”

John growled, his lip curled. “How do you know my name?”

“It’s what we do,” Coulson said. Faith imagined a shrug of the man’s shoulders although there wasn’t one. “Right now, we have to find Black Sky, make sure the threat is disarmed…”

“Well, he’s still alive, thanks to Murdock,” he groused, suspecting the shattering of that fulgurite had been intentional and not accidental. Murdock might be blind, but his actions were too precise to excuse such a thing as an accident.

“Or he was…” corrected Clint.

“We’ll track him, secure him…make sure he is safe…”

“You’re insane.” Faith shook her head as she brushed dirt from her knees. A large wedge of dirt and stones had slid down to block the tunnel’s entrance below, leaving just enough of the grating exposed to allow air to enter the tunnels. So long as there was air, and that tiny bit of an escape route, Faith was confident the other two men would survive. “You didn’t see what he DID…that was no normal boy…”

John agreed. “With that weird ultraviolet glow…either he’s already got abilities or else we’ve jumpstarted puberty for him…he’s gonna be one dangerous little bugger…and without the Killing Stone, you don’t stand a chance…”

“Killing Stone?”

Shaking his head at Coulson, John muttered, “If it’s your job to know this stuff, look it up yourselves.”

“We will.” To Clint, the barest hint of a twitch at the corners of Coulson’s eyes and moth suggested his annoyance with the blonde man. “In the meantime, if you’ll come with me for debriefing…”

“Sorry, pops…we’re not going anywhere without our friends.” There was no guarantee that Logan and Matt would exit the tunnels at this location, but there was even less of a guarantee that this bureaucrat would let them return from wherever he was proposing to take them. He reminded Faith of the Watchers, although without the stuffiness that most of those men and women had exuded, but that was not enough to prompt her to follow him anywhere. “And if you really want to know what’s going on, you’ve got the wrong two to question.” John could tell a great deal, but the bulk of the knowledge about this little war she had found herself in was in the heads of the two men still somewhere in the catacombs.

Coulson’s eyes narrowed a little as he weighed his options, studied the two before him, and then reached some conclusion that did not appear on his face. “Barton, let’s go…”

“Shouldn’t we wait…?” If there were other agents posted at other tunnel exits, wherever they were, then it made sense to Clint that he stay post at this one.

“You’re coming with me.”

Clint side-eyed Faith, shrugged his shoulders, and followed his boss in the direction where the police activity was beginning to die down. He knew the mission, knew Colson’s true objective here; they would see these two again soon.

Whether or not he would see the other two men again depended upon factors that Clint could not begin to weigh.

*

It was a short pursuit, with the path the wraith from his past lead him on ended by the collapse of the earthen walls and ceiling upon the slick polished metal rails. Logan noted that they must have been used a lot recently to account for the shine. His attention there was brief, however, as he came up short, face to face with a woman he had never expected to confront in this life.

“You need to pick better friends,” he growled, fists flexing to allow the extensions of claws once again. “After the last time…” Well, he decided as he stopped speaking, after the last time he remembered them meeting, she had been dead, her body cavity filled with so much adamantium that she had been unable to rise from the water tank where she had fallen.

Maybe not dead, he mused, but certainly incapacitated. Maybe she had been rescued somehow. Or maybe this Yuriko, like himself, was a clone, and thus her memories might not include dying at all.

“It is you who needs better allies,” she sneered. Yuriko never spoke much; he was surprised she deigned to speak to him now.

“I like my allies just fine.” Again she sneered, as if his words somehow proved whatever point she had been trying to make. “All we want is the boy…and for Hand to leave Havensport.”

“You will keep wanting. May its balm lull you to sleep tonight…”

So she wasn’t planning on killing him. Logan wondered why that was as she launched herself at him to meet with a heavy, violent crush of their bodies.

Maybe it was a simple acknowledgement of the inevitable, that killing one another was damn near impossible, and there was nothing he could see here that might give one of them an edge over the other. No weapons, save their claws, not tools to be used as weapons, only rocks from the collapsed walls that were of no use upon either of them. Bloody slices upon flesh healed quickly, the bruises created by the impact of fists, boots, or the bone shuddering impact against the crumbling walls, faded within minutes of their creation. Each aimed for the sole vulnerability the other possessed, the exposed necks that presented the potential of cleaving head from body, but they each protected that area as well, dragging the fight on minute after minute presenting no obvious winner.

Until, mid kick, her face went still, blank, her body now seeming to act, less efficiently, he mused, as if by some remotely given instructions. She lured him back down the corridor in the direction of the pit room with her continuing assault, until she was able to snatch up a mining pick from inside one of the empty gondolas, swing it, and with the fullness of her strength behind it, drive the curved metal head through Logan’s chest, pinning him to the wall behind him. As he yowled, she used a single kick to break the wooden handle from the cold steel head, punched that through his throat, and without another word sprinted out of the tunnel, across the room, and into the tunnel on the other side.

Angry and in agony, Logan yanked first the wooden stake and then the metal pick head free of the wall behind him and out of his skin. He collapsed, blood gushing, to lay awkwardly unmoving upon the ground and the rail at his feet. There was no way he could pursue her now, no way he was leaving this spot until the wounds were healed.

He hoped to hell she was not going after Murdock or the others.

*

“Up…stay low…wait for me…”

Blind with pain of the biological war going on within him, Creel had stumbled along following the directions the boy gave, not questioning how he knew where they would end up. The child’s glow had dulled, but was still present enough to remind Creel each time he thought to question a change in direction that this was no ordinary kid.

If he was, surely he would have died in the same horrible fashion that others they had stumbled across had suffered. One touch of Creel’s skin to theirs turned each to dust, taking longer each time, but still the same result. Knowing the nature of his own body, it was easy to pinpoint the cause of this change to the stone that had struck him in the same moment that other one’s claws had scratched his arm. Between the natural shift into the same metal as those claws or the substance that stone had been made of, the stone’s deadly properties were also trying to do what they were intended to do…kill the one it touched, kill him. It might still succeed, but while he breathed and had control of his limbs, he was going to do his best to make sure the child was far away from those who had held them both That his touch was not killing the child in his arms was another indicator that the boy was more unusual than Creel had suspected.

Maybe the glow was protecting him.

The tunnel they were in now was short, less than a foot taller than Creel’s head, and narrower than the others they had run through, no wider than his arm span from fingertip to fingertip when he used his hands to brace himself as the boy hoisted himself from Creel’s strong shoulders through the manhole above their heads. They had made so many twists and turns, through rusted, unused doors and seemingly abandoned tunnels Creel had not known were there, that he no longer knew where they might be. Thankfully, they had lost their pursuers some time back, although he had no illusion of their safety.

Creel had something they wanted. They might own him, but he was not going back, not until he was sure the boy was safe…and since he could not imagine any place that the conditions of safety might be met, he did not envision himself going back to that life ever. Out here, he mused, squinting into the street light’s glare as he wiggled out of the hole into a sleeping cul-de-sac at what appeared to be the western edge of town, a housing complex nestled at the foot of a rolling orchard, he was going to need to find a means of survival, a way to provide them both food and shelter.

Shelter was the number one priority now as he felt the first prickles of warmth on his back from the rising sun to the east. Shelter and rest…but not for too long. They could not afford to remain stationary for long, not while he was sure they were being hunted.

“There…” On the hilltop in the distance amidst the early budding of apple blossoms, an lean-to of weather faded lumber had been erected. With luck, the orchard’s owners or the orchard workers would not be about today, not until both Creel and the boy had a time to rest. Maybe there would be something they could eat there as well, otherwise he was going to have to find food and clothing for them some other way.

Fortunately for them both, Creel had no adversity to, and considerable experience at, a life of petty theft.

*

The police had cleared the cemetery hours ago, taking the injured and dead away along with any evidence they had collected. John thought it was hours, although his watch had been smashed to shit in that fight, and his internal clock, dulled by alcohol and nicotine, had never been all that reliable. He had not brought his cell phone, and even if he had, beyond checking the time, he was not about to call Logan or Murdock. That might put their lives at risk, revealing their hiding spot, distracting them from their hunt, alerting their prey to their position. But as he snapped his case closed for the fourth time since their emergence from the tunnels, he had to say something.

The silence was going to drive him more insane than he already was.

“They’re not coming…”

“They’ll make it out,” Faith said with a frustrated huff. “I’m not giving up on…”

“That’s not what I said, luv…I said they’re not coming here. Sun’s coming up…don’t think we should be seen standing around here.”

“I’m not going to abandon them.”

We’re not abandoning anyone. Patrol the streets if it makes you feel better…or hole up somewhere for a few hours’ sleep…and when the sun sets again, we go back in…”

“We’re not…” But even as she started to say it, she realized it might be the only option they had. Either Logan or Matt would find them, or they would have to go in search themselves…which meant clawing through the mudslide to get through the grate again. With the top of the door visible, it meant minimal work, but still more of it then she cared to do on a serious lack of sleep.

A quick glance around them, and John located an old rusted shovel near some of the abandoned build site structures. He left his bag with Faith and ran over to grab it. “I need to get that stone back…’” he muttered as he reached her again. I made a promise to return it, and I shall. You stay up here…I’m going in.”

“You can’t go in there by yourself?”

“You going to stop me? “ He began his descent, carefully monitor the stability of his foot holds, and continued when it appeared that she had no intention of following.

Faith ground her teeth, looked back at the colors being born into the morning sky, and followed John, swearing under breath. This had to be a very bad idea…although maybe not as bad of an idea as it had been charging into this mess to begin with.

*

He’d lain there longer than intended. Maybe he’d slept, as he didn’t remember much beyond Yuriko running off into the darkness, a faint echo of the clash of swords…and then footsteps that dragged his lids open like rakes across dry leaves.

“Faith…”

No Slayer that time. He was too happy to see her alive.

“Where is...?”

“Hush…lie still…you’re hurt…” The front of his shirt, his throat, were coated with a viscous layer of blood, but closer inspection showed that the wounds that had given birth to that blood had closed over, and the dryness of much of the red stain proved it had been some time ago.

“The others?”

She thumbed over her shoulder, where John was kicking through the rubble where he had been standing, picking up the iron bowl, inspecting the fulgurite shards, looking for details only he would recognize.

“Murdock?”

“I dunno...after the boy.” There was a trace of a question to her words, but Logan nodded in agreement. That seemed likely; Murdock wasn’t the sort to let his adversaries get away as long as he was capable of pursuit. He would trust that the others were doing their part, would trust that they would be safe…and if they weren’t, he’d do emotional penance for that later. Thank God he wasn’t there to witness the mess Logan wore down the front of his body. He would blame himself, regardless of whether he was guilty of it or not. “There were others…an archer…a man in a suit…Clint, one of them said…and Coulson…”

“Coulson?” Logan was not at all surprised that anyone would think to clone either of those two men, imagined it was some secret branch of the military or the CIA or the like, wanting men of expertise to give them an edge in the field. Like Faith, however, he did not know what had brought them here, but if they’d helped keep her and John alive, helped put down the Hand…

He scrambled, to his feet, his body stiff but with no lingering pain, to scan their subterranean battlefield. The only light in the room now was the lighter John carried in one hand. Every Hand agent, every body, living or dead, was gone, and it was impossible to tell, from the scuffs and drag marks in the dusty rubble of the floor, if they had been carried out or had walked away on their own. It was a wonder no one had taken him as well…or tried to finish him off while he lay incapacitated…but maybe they thought him already dead.

Or else they had left via the opposite corridor, where the boy had been spirited away.

“Did it work?”

“Dunno,” John muttered, grumpy and tired. He held out a handful of fulgurite shards. “Thanks to Murdock, I’m thinking no.” Maybe it had, and destroying the fulgurite had successfully destroyed the kami so that it would never again be a threat. Or maybe it had released the spirit back into the ether from which it came. Unable to imagine the do-gooder either ‘killing’ a spirit or taking the chance of it returning by releasing it, John could only conclude that the act of destroying the lightning glass had been strictly to protect the boy’s life.

He let the shards sprinkle down upon the floor so that he could pick up the silver tipped red stick that Matt had left behind. Faith took it from him and tucked it through her belt loop. “He’s going to be looking for that.”

He must have left in a hurry to have abandoned it here.

“Well I hope he doesn’t touch that big fellow…we’re going to have to keep an eye on the papers…the police reports…the television…for people turning into piles of dust.” John shuddered. He would be okay with never seeing that again.

“What was that guy…?”

“Mutant.” Not one Logan recognized, but there was no other way to explain a man who’s skin took on the properties of whatever he touched. Logan had seen similar mutations, from Raven’s shapeshifting to Darwin’s ability to ‘adapt to survive’.

“One bloody useful mutation.” John was growing frustrated with not finding the Killing Stone and feared with each unsuccessful moment that passed that the Hand had gotten hold of it. A criminal organization with their fingers deep in matters of the occult would surely recognize it, know its purpose, know how to use it.

Naoko was going to kill him…thought he’d have to get in the long line of those already waiting to usher John into the hell that awaited him.

“There’s other ways out of here…Coulson said so,” Faith interjected, changing the subject to channel John’s agitation somewhere else. “He claimed to have agents guarding them…so maybe he’s rounded up our ninja friends, found your stone, and found Matt and the boy too.”

“Got a way to reach him?”

She shook her head. “No…but I got the feeling he’s not leaving town without seeing us again.” He’d try to recruit them if he could, but Faith had no intention of obliging him. Neither, she imagined, would John or Logan; John was not what one would call a team player, and Logan had built one hell of a life in Havensport, a life he wasn’t likely interested in leaving behind to play superhero.

Like Faith, Logan was doing this because it was in their own backyard, too close to Tigh Ard and to those they loved to be allowed to remain, to take root, to thrive in Havensport. When the matter was put to rest, Hand destroyed or driven out of the region, their lives would go back to normal.

Standing at the edge of the chasm, Logan stared into the darkness there, picked up a stone, and let it fall, listening for the hit that would tell him how deep into the earth it went. Seconds passed, his scowl deepening, until he finally heard a dull thud of the rock hitting bottom.

“Thirty…forty stories I’d guess…”

“Why dig such a thing here? What could they possibly…?”

“Ley lines.” The two looked back at John who was now kicking cautiously through the debris in the relative location where he believed the Killing Stone had fallen. “This is one of three major convergences in Havensport…one being to the south…near the museum…and the third running beneath the cliff top chapel at Tigh Ard…”

Logan snorted. “Well that explains all the weird shit that goes on there.” He had not kept track of those incidents, but it seemed to him that a lot of peculiar things happened out on that cliff, and he knew that Kavan and Curt, Tamara and others, were drawn to that cliff…anyone who smacked of magic power. Logan didn’t like magic, couldn’t sense it himself beyond the bonds that tied each member to the Brigham-Bruce House, but he’d seen way too many things that he could not explain to try to claim that it did not exist.”

“Any occult magic performed here would be stronger…easier…”

“So maybe they had the Black Sky kid here to feed his strengths?” Faith asked.

“Most likely,” John nodded.

“If you’d been around…and you knew this…we could have gotten here sooner.” What advantage a few days or hours might have gained them was impossible to say, but it would have been better to find it themselves then stumble upon it by chance the way they had tonight.

Squatting, opening his bag, and removing the specially prepared box from within it, John muttered, “I was busy getting this…” The layers of fabric within the bag allowed John to pick up the object he was relieved to have found. He knew what it was by the negative energy he could feel radiating from its hull as his hand drew nearer to it. Wrapping it carefully in the fabric sleeves, he tucked it into the box, locked the latches, and shoved it into his bag. “For all the good it did us.”

Maybe if he refused to return it to Naoko, he would have to admit their failure.

Faith shrugged. “We could try again.”

“He’ll be waiting for us next time…they all will be…and I think, with his powers awakening…anything we try is going to be doomed to failure.”

“There has to be a way…” Logan paused, sniffing the air, a familiar scent faintly filling his nostrils, but then it was gone before he was able to identify it. It didn’t come again.

“If there’s a way to kill a god, I sure as hell haven’t found it.” Maybe their new ‘friend’ Coulson might have an answer, but John doubted it. Thanks to Murdock, the world was screwed. John had done his part perfectly. None of this was his fault.

So why the hell did he feel so defensive and guilty.

“Drive you home, Faith?”

She shook her head. “I’m not going home looking like this…J will have a fit. I’ll just hole up with Chops…if you’re cool with that…”

“You got your truck?” asked Logan, already heading into the corridor where they had arrived.

“Only one I have…”

“Good…you can give my bike a lift. We all go back to my place and wait for Murdock to join us. He’ll be there as soon as he can.” Plus, sticking together would make it easier for Coulson to find them, if he was looking…and would allow them each to have each other’s back, should Hand or Yakuza decide to come calling.

There was no way he was letting either of these two go back to Tigh Ard now, to possibly lead their enemies to the vulnerable House. Until this was over, no one was going anywhere.

*

The lean-to was a tool shed, with nothing to eat within but a case of bottled water sitting to one side behind a collection of orchard tools. Heedless of their surroundings, thankful for a place upon the floor that was big enough for him to set the child down before he collapsed himself, Creel squinted at the fingers of light that clawed through the cracks between boards and covered his eyes with his arm.

“If anyone comes…hide back there…behind the crates,” he mumbled through thick lips cracked with thirst and the effects of the biological war he was subjected to. “When it gets dark…you run. Don’t stop to talk to anyone…don’t trust anyone…just run.”

The boy shook his head. “Not die,” his silent voice said in broken English. “I not let you.”

“This isn’t up to you, kid…”

“Iwai…”

Creel peeped out from beneath his arm. “Is that your name?” He’d never heard a name used in reference to the child.”

The boy shook his head. “No…I…” He pouted. He did not remember his before name, the name he had been given by his mother, his father, before the monks had taken him away for his education. On that day, he had become Iwai, but what it meant, he could not say. Somewhere, in all of the years since that day, he had forgotten who he had been.

He could not even recall his mother’s face, his father’s, his siblings…or any of their voices. It was as if he had always been with the monks, had always been Iwai. And he had been content with that until those in black and red had slaughtered every monk and taken him away, locked him in the container on a ship that crossed the great sea, with only the chains that bound him as company and clothing for his body.

He was still Iwai, but now things were different, different enough that he did not like them, different enough that he wanted to go back…if only he had something to go back to.

“Water…” Creel’s arm dropped back down to cover his eyes. He listened to the rip and crinkle of plastic, the pop of the water bottle’s spout, and then felt the cool liquid trickle over his lips. He licked at it, opened his mouth for several swallows, and then turned his head away.

Not because he’d had enough, but because unconsciousness claimed him, leaving Iwai alone in the early morning stillness.

Alone, but not as afraid as he had been. He would keep Creel safe, and afterwards, there was one more thing he had to do. One more thing…that Creel was not going to like at all.


	25. 25

Two days passed. Faith called Jessie to tell her that the car she’d driven into Havensport had broken down and that she was going to stay in town until the repairs were done, do a bit of shopping in the meantime and help a guy she knew from the local gym move into a new place. They had discussed the earthquake, barely felt at Tigh Ard but enough to spark fears of more building collapses there. No one had been overly concerned, however, and after a quick but thorough inspection of the build site, the work had continued as if nothing had ever happened. Faith was thankful that there was no damage and that no one had been hurt.

To back up her story, Faith asked Logan to mess with her car’s engine, had it towed to an obscure, but trustworthy according to Logan, repair garage, and she did help her moving friend haul a bunch of boxes from his tiny cramped car up to his new bachelor apartment. Then, with Jessie’s birthday coming up, Faith spent a few hours browsing the stores that were within walking distance of Logan’s apartment, looking for the best treasure she could find for the other woman. She ended up deciding on a week-long reservation at an expensive nearby spa…all the manicures, pedicures, Jacuzzi time and massages the other woman deserved for the hundreds…thousands…of hours she poured into taking care of Tigh Ard’s ranks. Faith would find a few other things as well, because she knew Jessie would like surprises wrapped in beautiful, flowery paper that she could unwrap like a little girl.

Hardly girly herself, Faith loved to watch that side of Jessie. It made her feel warm and protective and secure. She would feel a lot better, however, if she knew they had banished their enemies from Havensport.

So far, however, there was little proof of their success or failure.

There was a massacre of Irish mobsters on the dock, a conclave meeting slaughtered with gunfire, not with swords. Maybe they had died at the hands of one of the other criminal organizations in town. Or maybe, Logan warned, it was the Hand covering their handiwork behind weapons they did not normally use. And no reason it could not have been the Yakuza. With the Yakuza and Hand working together, that was the most likely explanation.

It sure as hell hadn’t been Murdock.

But with their choice to lay low, and Logan lacking the more diplomatic skills necessary to question the various criminal players in Havensport, they had no means of learning the truth. There was no obvious reason why the Yakuza might have gone after the Irish. Yes, the Irish had been, before the massacre, the largest criminal organization in the area, but other than a possible territorial spat, or a retaliatory strike because of some real or imagined slight, such a massacre didn’t make sense.

“They’re crazy bastards,” had been John’s explanation, the most likely in Faith’s opinion. He hadn’t gone back to Tigh Ard either, but he had gone to his stash, to store the Killing Stone where no one could accidentally get to it…or intentionally either, as his place was too well warded for anyone else to be able to get into it. He hoped. He had contemplated taking the stone back to Naoko, but the thought of trying to explain their failure all because Murdock. John underplayed the cowardice in facing Naoko by arguing to himself that they might still need that stone, that it might still be instrumental in stopping Black Sky. John stayed at the cabin rather than return to the apartment, neck deep in research, using the new clues about Black Sky in the hopes of discovering some tidbit of information that might prove helpful the next time they found him.

They would find him. He had few doubts about that.

But it was the morning of the third day…and still no Murdock.

Captured? Killed? Pursing Black Sky on his own without the burden of those prone to killing everything in sight.

It was strangely admirable, but also foolish from John’s perspective. Sooner or later, someone had to do the ugly bits. If Murdock couldn’t…well then, it just left the job to others. At least John, and the others, weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty in that particular cesspool.

But it would be a damn sight more reassuring if they knew where he was. John told himself he shouldn’t care; Murdock had been the one to fuck this whole business up. But damn if couldn’t shake the burden of respect for the blind man. Sticking to one’s principles wasn’t easy in this business. And hell could that man fight.

How long before they dared look for him? Maybe they should enlist that Coulson bloke and the one with the arrows. Maybe they knew where Black Sky was…where Murdock was. John wouldn’t be at all surprised if they’d finished the job, those two and whatever other ‘agents’ they had, and moved on without sharing the news. Maybe they’d even taken Murdock with them.

John growled. He shouldn’t care if they had. But he would have liked to say goodbye to the blind man…share one more drink for the road. It did no good to part on sour terms. John Constantine had few people he could call friends.

He had begun to think of Murdock as one of them. No killing nonsense aside.

*

He stayed with Creel those three days, existing on water and the tiny, sour green apples newly emerging on the trees in the orchard outside. He rarely slept, always listening for the dangers he knew he could sense if they came, always listening to the gradually less labored breathing of the only man in recent weeks to show him kindness.

Not the only man of kindness. He knew that in the corners of his soul that his most recent keepers had been unable to crush or bury in the darkness of their agenda. There was one…one who had tried to help him, one who had come as he’d asked, to free him. The plea had been made before he’d met Creel, the two men willing to help, so why had they been fighting one another. Why, he thought sadly, had no one listened.

Was the nature of what he was poison to everyone around him as the monks had said he could be? Was this somehow his doing?

It was a debate his young mind was not prepared to have, and so he focused on Creel, on meditating and healing the damage a single stone had caused.

If that stone had touched him, he might have died. Creel had sacrificed himself to keep that from happening.

And if he had answered the summons of the fulgurite’s blood spell, he might also have died. The other had spared him that as well, a sacrifice of a different kind.

There were others, the ones called Hand who prostrated at his feet each day when as he trained with blades and fists, who would die for him as well. Many of them had. But that was different. They sacrificed themselves to the quest for supreme power and the domination they believed he could offer them. Theirs was no sacrifice of love.

He might be a child, but he was old enough to understand the difference, even if he did not understand why the difference existed.

As he worked to keep Creel alive, however, he knew at last the nature of himself, the true nature, what he carried and the taste of what he could do with it. Others wanted to control that, twist him one way or another, mold his future and his mind for him.

Didn’t he deserve to make his own way, his own decisions about what his future would be?

Believing he did, he lay down next to Creel’s side, head upon the man’s shoulder. There was little that could be done here, little he could do until Creel awoke and they were free of this tiny enclosure. But there was one thing…and he was going to do it now. Slowing his breathing, his heart rate, every internal system, and closed his eyes to sleep. When he awoke, he expected things to be very different.

*

Clint Barton did not like feeling as though he had failed.

Yes, the requisitioning of Black Sky, a child with gifts that surely marked him as Mutant or Inhuman or something else who had fallen into the hands of some very bad people…people who wanted to warp him for their dark purposes, had not been solely Clint’s mission. Every known exit of those tunnels had been monitored by one or more agents…and yet the boy, and the people controlling him, had failed to emerge. Oh, they’d gotten their hands on a few, men to be studied thoroughly in the security of the Unit’s compound, where they could be held without fear of escape.

That was the claim, but it never made Clint feel any better about bringing people there. How long before whatever ‘humane’ treatment they were given was deemed as just so much pointless fluff and their ‘captives’ chose to find a way out. There was always a way. When dealing with those who possessed abilities that the Unit did not understand, there were always ways for those captors to escape.

That wasn’t Clint’s problem, however. He couldn’t be there to keep them in captivity, and he could not be at each tunnel complex exit to find, and capture, those Coulson wanted caught. Clint could only go where he was sent, do what he was asked…but even that he had not done well. Not this time.

Yes, he had gotten two of the four out alive. The third…well, their intel had been correct in that the one with the adamantium claws could survive injuries that would kill anyone else. Coulson’s intel knew where each of them was, knew them to be licking their wounds much the way Coulson and his team were doing. Without Clint’s assistance, two of those three might not have survived that fight. Then again, they might have. He was confident of his skills, but not so cocky as to think that he had been just the savior they had needed.

That savior might have been the man that Clint hadn’t saved, had sent into the bowels of the earth not to return.

His tracker had failed to mark Creel, they could not find him that way, but that failure Clint could mark down to a lack of intel, for there had been no mention of Creel being in The Hand’s grasp.

Sending the devil into hell, however, was Clint’s doing, or at least it had taken away any hopes the man might have had of regaining his balance upon the ledge of that chasm.

Now he stood outside of the director’s door, smoothing out his clothes, forcing himself to swallow his pride before knocking. He had to do this. He was not going to get a good night’s sleep again until he assured himself that his actions had not been as detrimental as he believed…or until he atoned for them by bringing the other man’s body home.

Even if he was dead, somewhere, someone was missing him. Maybe just his three companions, but if they mattered enough for Murdock to fight beside, they mattered enough to Clint.

“Come in.” Phil looked up from something on his desk, a computer screen he quickly covered containing, Clint imagined, sensitive data he did not want others to see. It was slightly troubling not to be trusted, but then again, it was the director’s job to know everything and to give the others as much as he felt they needed to know.

Today, whatever that knowledge was, Clint apparently was not on the need to know list, which was just as well since he had other things to take care of.

“Clint…what can I do for you?”

“I want to go back in, sir.”

“I see.”

He did not ask ‘back in where’. Coulson had a knack for knowing his team’s innermost thoughts, for reading them, for knowing them sometimes before they knew it themselves. Clint didn’t know how he did it; he was no mutant, no Inhuman. Phil Coulson was simply a man with one of the biggest set of balls Clint had ever met.

“We might have missed something in there…we must have missed something in there. The Hand…they could not have evaporated…and none of our intel gives them skills that should keep them off our radar. They must have had living quarters in there; maybe there’s a clue we’ve missed.”

“And you think I haven’t considered that?”

Phil wasn’t insulted, at least his expression did not suggest it, but Clint felt embarrassed about his presumptiveness all the same.

“Of course you have, sir. But unless I’m wrong…our focus has been above ground…on the contacts that led us here…one where The Hand might go next.” He shifted his feet and clasped his hands behind his back. “I want to go into that chasm, sir. I want to see what’s there…to know why Murdock hasn’t surfaced. I sent him down there…I should be the one to bring him back.”

Phil turned his computer’s view screen so that Clint could see it, and with the click of a few buttons, brought up the display of an underground map Clint recognized as the complex of abandoned subway tunnels. “That’s not a bad idea, Clint. Whatever’s under here…whatever all of this is…” he indicated the area beneath the subway tunnels, the area extending outwards from the chasm where Murdock had fallen, “our sensors can’t penetrate it. Something…natural or otherwise, is shielding it. We don’t know what’s down there. It extends to nearly the center of downtown…and then our sensors can see again. That’s a mighty big area.”

“Anyone could be hiding in there…they could be building bombs, or killer robots, or…”

“Killer robots?” Coulson chuckled.

Clint shrugged. “If Stark could do it…”

“Touché.” He hadn’t liberated a Stark for his team yet, but Coulson had his hopes out for that man and so many others.

“All they really need is a clone oven…”

“Exactly. I’ve been considering sending a team in…but the odds are that our communications will be cut off by whatever’s shielding that area…”

“And sending a team means the loss of a lot of good men and women.” Odds were that Coulson, knowing that, had been considering who best to send into there…the most capable…the most expendable. “So send me.” His skills included stealth, acrobatics, combat, and he sure as hell wasn’t afraid to go in alone. And unlike the rest of his comrades, Clint actually had a reason to go. Maybe that reason would make him vulnerable, less attentive to detail, by some peoples’ reckoning, but Clint believed that Coulson knew him better than that and had faith in his skills.

“Alright…suit up. We’ll get in position and send you in at twenty two hundred hours.”

“Why so…?” But Clint knew why. The Unit was keeping its presence in Havensport hidden, and there had been enough activity around the abandoned subway build site in the last few days to make his approach an easy one. Going in after dark was a necessity…and hopefully one that would avoid detection by an influx of security personnel, ground inspectors, and police patrol cars. “I’ll be ready, sir. I’ll get what we need and get it back to you. You can count on that.”


	26. 26

_She was awash in color, predominantly the reds and golds of flame he was use to but there were hints of others as well, spring emerald and the silver, white, and blue of sunlit surf, and the scent of the sea surrounded. Not the rancid, oil and fish and chemical smells of the docks he knew, but rather the way he had always imagined the open sea would smell. She had no physical features, only a vaguely outlined form, wisps in a fire both capable of burning him with its proximity and freezing him if he got too far away. A hand upon his face, tender, electric, and the barest whisper tickling within his ears made his heart beat faster._

_“Get up…you must get up.”_

_“No…I…can’t…” He wanted to, but his leaden limbs hurt too much to be willing to obey his brain’s demands for movement._

_“You must…”_

_His fingers flexed. He poured his concentration into his arms, but the effort to pull them beneath him, to push himself up from the rocky surface upon which he laid, ended in failure, the pain too great, for once in his life, to allow the fight to go on. Only the sensation of hands now cupping his face brought him ease from pain, brought him peace._

_“No….” It was so much easier to remain where he was, to succumb to the hurt. Hadn’t he done enough?_

_“Get up, kid. Don’t be a pussy…”_

_Matt felt a flare of indignation towards Stick’s voice. Murdock’s were a lot of things. Weak pussies weren’t among them._

_“Your fight isn’t over, Matty…Murdocks always get up…”_

_That was his father, a distant, distorted scolding voice seeping in as through too much water were between them. Choking, spitting, he gasped for air, wanting to disappoint neither voice, wanting to prove himself, wanting them both to be proud of him, but it felt like he was drowning, like someone was standing on his back so that his lungs were compressed, trading air for fluid that would surely kill him if he could not shake it_

_“No one knocks a Murdock down and gets away with it.”_

_“Dad…”_

_Fingers caressed his cheek. The corners of his mouth twitched in response. He tasted blood. “I believe in you…”_

_His mother?_

_No. He had no recollection of that woman’s voice, her face…he had been very small when she left him and his dad, but he knew this wasn’t her. This was someone who made his nerves tingle, who added a surge of warmth into his veins that banished the sluggish feeling of dormant blood. Some of the pain receded, but the rising of blood brought sensation into places he had not felt before, awakened his body to the innumerable injuries he had sustained._

_How was he even alive? How could he be expected to fight like this?_

_“You came for me. I return to you what was taken.”_

_A third voice, smaller, the strident sound of youth, a lilting, natural foreign coloring of accent that he could not pinpoint in origin but recognized from…_

_When?_

_It was one of the last memories floating at the foggty edges of his mind, anchored only in the pain that immobilized his limbs, his lungs, his other organs and seared in the crevices where the feminine touch had stirred his blood._

_“Please…” whispered the woman’s voice again, her breath heady and sweet against his mouth. He could feel her desperation, not only hear it; it gave him goosebumps._

_His father again, stern, demanding, encouraging…like a boxing coach to his fighter. The significance of that, as his words added to the weight of the others, was not lost on him. “No beating keeps a Murdock down, Matty…get up and fight…show them who you are.”_

_And then hands…small, dainty…spread across his back, adding to the weight pushing down upon him, sending sharp, intense pain through his core…_

_NO!_

He gasped and opened his eyes, the dreaming vanquished by the searing pain, and he lay rigid for several moments, blinded to sounds, scents, to other physical sensation, aware only of the now receding ache and the pressure of tiny hands pressing against his spine. He could barely breathe, which gave birth to physical panic, but between the lingering feelings of breath across his lips and the hands upon his back, his breathing gradually became easier and the hurt throughout his body subsided to an endurable level. This was a level he could overcome. This was a pain he could push past to make his father proud.

No, he would not go down without a fight. No, he would not let The Hand win by giving up. Surrender was not an option.

Effort split between rising from the cold ground and listening to his surroundings, he struggled to determine where he was and recall how he had gotten here. Like flashes of light into the shadows of his memory, snippets were brought back to him with each pull of abused muscle. That stone…the Black Sky…Creel. The snap of a bowstring that had caught his opponent in the back of the neck, and though they were both already falling, guaranteed that they would be unable to regain their footing.

Friend or foe, he wondered. It wouldn’t be like the Hand to miss their target and hit one of their own, but none of Matt’s companions had carried bows, and so someone else had been in that cavern, someone else whose arrival Matt had not distinguished from any of those others in the room. He should have. Then he wouldn’t be wherever he was now.

His hand braced against the wall, he swayed on his feet as he listened. It was long way up, a largely sheer-walled climb but one he could make. Around him were more tracks, similar to those above, stretching off in three directions from where he stood, a peculiar maze that seemed empty to his senses, as far as they would stretch. It might mean he was alone, or it might mean The Hand was present. With no audible heartbeats, no audible breathing, no sound of feet or fabric, he could not be certain which was the truth. The air reverberated with a peculiar energy, a white noise hum that masked most sound, that he could feel emanating from the earth beneath his hand. Curious, expecting to find a source of electricity if he tracked the hum to its source, he followed the wall, steps growing slowly stronger and steadier. He could have climbed, could have left this place; Creel and Black Sky were gone, and he sensed no trace of Logan, Faith or John. They had either left, had been taken, or had been killed and he believed that the only way to learn which was to follow where this maze took him.

The Hand had been here, had, possibly, dug out these tunnel, which meant they might have been here much longer than night of Black Sky’s arrival. If there was something here worth the effort to dig them, even if it was only a hidden means of getting about the city undetected or a mean to stash illegal product, it was worth discovering. But the abandoned subway tunnels above should have sufficed for either purpose. Instinct told Matt this was here for some other reason.

He pulled one glove off to better feel the surface of the walls. There were temperature variations, striations in the soil left by millennia of erosion and deposits of sand and mud, decayed plant and animal matter and something else, something ancient. Something smooth and hot, metallic in feel and possibly volcanic in origin. Some substance forged by extreme heat and pressure and, after sniffing his fingers and tasting the bittersweet residue the substance left on his fingers, some additional chemical processes he could not name. He was no scientist, but he knew this was not iron or any other natural ore with which he was familiar. His nails would scratch into it, a bit of rock from the floor neither shipped it nor scratched it.

Whatever it was the electrical hum was stronger there, as if coming from the material itself, or the material was amplifying the hum, channeling the current. And it was growing stronger in the direction he was staggering. Soon enough he would reach the source…if The Hand did not stop him first.

*

Having rappelled into the chasm when he deemed it safe enough to do so, Clint crouched at the bottom, giving himself time to acclimate to the new level of darkness while seeking a direction. Up above, there had been a faint glow in the room by fluorescent lanterns that continued to pop and sizzle even after the three days he had been away.

Maybe they had been reset. Maybe they contained their own self-perpetuating power cell. Clint had not had the time to investigate. He was on the clock. The team would be waiting at the extraction point at the end of four hours. He wasn’t sure six hours would be enough, but it was all the time Coulson was willing to be out of radio contact with him. If the team’s calculations were right, once Clint left the place where he stood, he would no longer be able to radio for backup if it was needed.

“I don’t seen anything,” he murmured into the comm. “No sign of…wait…” He switched the viewing options of his goggles and studied closer the area around his feet. “Blood…no drag marks…except…” He followed one set of strange scuffs through the dust to find the man he had shot some eight feet away behind an ore gondola. “The one I got’s still here…and Director…they’re mining?”

“Mining what?”

Coulson’s voice crackled through the connection.

“I don’t know…the gondolas are empty…whatever it is,” he glanced up at the bucket suspended above him, “there must be processing on site.” There were no obvious transportation points above ground that would accommodate tons of unprocessed, raw material.

“Bring a sample back with you. And good luck, Agent Barton...and bring Murdock home with you.”

“ I will, sir. Barton out.”

He had a one in three shot of picking the right passage. If the dead man was here, he guessed that the enemy had abandoned this place, or were, at least, on the run. From him, from the Unit…maybe from Murdock if the man had somehow managed to survive that fall. Clint glanced down each of the passages and made his choice.

*

Whoever was approaching behind him, while moving with stealth, was alone and clearly not a member of The Hand. There was nothing in the passage that he could hide behind, no doorways or corners near enough for him to reach before the faster moving individual was near enough to see him. The individual had to have light or new the tunnel well, to allow such quick movement.

Under most conditions, Matt trusted he could take down any man in a fight or avoid any projectiles hurled at him over a distance. But thanks to the internal injuries caused by that fall, he knew these weren’t ‘most conditions’. That wasn’t enough, however, to prevent him from turning back to face his pursuer and brace himself for a fight.

Maybe Yakuza. Maybe Creel.

The other man stopped too, the change in the rhythm of his heart rate indicated surprise…expectation. Matt’s fists flexed at his side.

This was the last man Clint had expected to come across, standing so assured in the corridor, waiting for a fight that Clint did not intend, even though he swayed slightly, giving away his less than peak condition. For any man to have survived that fall at all was a miracle. For him to on his feet was another.

Heat signatures. Perhaps a dozen, perhaps more…the positions of the ones Clint could count could mask others. The bow came up, arrow knocked, with the word “Drop!” absorbed by the unusual substance in the wall.

For less than a second, Matt thought the arrow was meant for him. In that same moment, however, he sensed them there, in the direction he had been walking. Reflexes allowed him to miss both arrow and the daggers thrown from their enemy, and proved whose side the newcomer was on.

An ally. A good thing for Matt to have in his condition.

The mass of bodies, clearly as surprised to find them there as Matt and Clint were to come face to face with them now, rushed forward on silent feet, their throwing weapons expended. They carried swords, but the word had been spread amongst them. Using those swords gave away their position, allowed the devil to follow their movement. Being living beings, however, even if ones who had mastered control of the internal rhythms, they had to breathe, and it was Stick’s voice this time, distinctive in his ears, not his head.

Was Stick here?

Six more arrows flew in rapid succession, six more Hand agents dropped, leaving eight more, as it turned out. Clint did not have the Devil’s fighting style, might not his suit or his expertise, and when the goggles were lost in the fight, smashed beneath his own boots, he was forced to fight in unfamiliar darkness, but in the end, thanks to Matt’s refusal to submit, refusal to give up, refusal to stay down under any amount of assault or pain, every member of The Hand lay scattered about the passage, incapacitated and silent. Both Clint and Matt were leaning breathlessly against the walls, Matt sizing up his unexpected ally, Clint just trying to catch his breath.

“You don’t remember me…”

Matt cocked his head. “No. Should I…?”

Clint sighed. That was always the problem with meetings between clones, even ones generated from the same ‘universe’. There was never any sure way to know what memories they had been given, which had been erased. What they might have been given instead. Once the cloning process had been developed, the natural extension had been customization…enhancements…hybrids…or simply two individual created from different places in a timeline. Clint had memories of Murdock…injected by Coulson before the mission in Havensport had begun…but Matt did not share them.

He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter…” It really didn’t, beyond giving Clint the knowledge of Matt’s capabilities…and sensibilities.

“You killed them…”

“Sleeping agent…check them if you want. Should keep most men out for eighteen hours…not so sure about Hand though. We’ve gotta go. There are people waiting topside…”

“I have to find the others…”

“They’re safe, I swear it. Made it out in one piece.” Well, Logan had been temporarily dead from those impaling injuries, but there was no point in saying that now.”

Matt listened. There was no falseness in the archer. The others were safe. Still, he found the nearest body with an arrow protruding from it, and felt for breath, for pulse, for life.

He was alive.

Satisfied, he pulled the arrow free, sniffed the end of it to get some sense of the sleeping agent used, and held it back to the archer. “You might still need these.”

“Won’t be enough of a dose on them for others…but yeah…you’re right.”

Not questioning that the other man could not find his way through the maze of bodies in the dark, Matt found each of the other arrows and returned them as well. “Creel…the boy…?”

“Creel.” He knew that name from somewhere in the Unit’s logs, but since he could not currently place it, he tucked it away in the back of his memories. “They escaped; we’re trying to track them…”

“We?”

“My team.” Arrows tucked back into the quiver, he added, “If it’s any consolation, The Hand hasn’t been active since your raid…”

“Until now.”

“Until now,” Clint conceded. “Our sensors detected an anomaly down here…a black area that we can’t penetrate…”

“So that’s why you’re here.”

“That and hoping to find you. Didn’t intend to contribute to your fall…should let a doctor check you over…”

“I’m fine…”

“And I’m Madonna.”

“There’s obviously people here…Hand…they could have the boy…”

“I doubt it…and you’re in no condition to take on an army alone.”

“I’m fine…”

“I’d wager you’ve more than a few broken ribs…you risk a punctured lung if you keep this up. I came to find you, to find out what they’re hiding…what’s generating the shield…”

Perturbed by the man’s persistence in keeping him from fighting, particularly since Matt knew the man’s assessment of his ribs was accurate., he snapped coolly, “It’s this.” He snatched up a chunk of the unfamiliar metallic substance and put it in the archer’s hands. “There’s energy in it…stored power. Every inch of these tunnels pulses with it. There’s more of it ahead…its stronger there…”

“Probably more Hand too…and others…”

“Maybe…but we have to…”

“We have to get you out of here…get this analyzed…get backup…”

Matt’s first instinct was to protest, but the twist of his body as he stood up again brought another sharp pain in his side, of ribs that needed to heal if he was going to be effective in his next fight. Sometimes one had to heed the signs of their own bodies; knowing when to be stubborn and when to relent was always a Murdock’s most difficult fight.

“There’s someone else here…a…friend…” He did not know where, did not know how, but he believed the man to be here. “More of a mentor than friend really…”

“Where?”

“I don’t know…” He cocked his head, focusing his hearing down little by little to isolate the sounds he wanted…a single heart beat…a single man’s breath. He could not pare away the hum, however, which made him take longer to find what he wanted then usual, but finally he nodded and pointed. “there…that way.”

In the direction of the power source’s heart.

Clint could not see which way he pointed, but he knew. Not the direction from which they had both come, but in the direction they had been going…as if someone…something…wanted them to find whatever lay ahead.

He pocketed the stone Matt had given him and pushed off of the wall. “Then we go that way.” He had time still, just under four hours, before the extraction deadline. The more intel he could bring Coulson, the better…but he did not want to do that at the expense of another man’s life.

“Clint, by the way.” He offered his hand in the direction of the Devil’s voice and was pleased when Murdock accepted the handshake.

He wasn’t surprised, however, that Murdock didn’t give his name. He wore that mask for a reason, and Clint was not privileged, known, or trusted enough yet to get beneath it.

That would come in time.


	27. 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now introducing Lance Hunter (Agent's of Shield), and Stick (Daredevil)

“Time to go.”

Creel sat up abruptly, sleep sliding off of his skin like water off of oil, feeling whole, feeling healthy, and feeling certain that their tiny sanctuary was about to be overrun. His movement brought the boy awake, his words filling him with a brief sense of panic, but then, before Creel’s eyes, he shed his fear to stand coolly…calmly…the perfect portrait of a seasoned warrior before battle. With nothing in the room to easily serve him as a weapon, Creel wrapped one fist around the metal blades of a pair of pruning sheers and breathed easier when he watched his skin take on the same silver sheen as the blade. That should protect him enough to allow him to get the child safely away from here, give the child time to flee.

But Iwai, as he had asked to be called, snatched up a rake, snapped the head from the wooden handle as if he was breaking a tiny dry twig, and then looked up into Creel’s eyes, nodding as if to say he was ready.

Creel wondered again of Iwai could not speak or if he merely chose not to. Why bother with words when he could say what he wished with his thoughts alone?

They did not step out of the shed but rather waited for their hunters to come to them. Both knew they wanted the boy alive, so their efforts would focus on incapacitating Creel and separating him from Iwai. But whatever they knew about him that had initiated their choice to make him Iwai’s protectors, they seemed to underestimate, or perhaps be unaware of, his peculiar set of gifts.

A steady stream of black-clad Hand entered, to be dispatched by both man and boy, none of them strong enough to take down a man whose skin their blades and fists could not damage, none of them willing to disobey orders by harming Black Sky. Killing him was only a last resort…but doing so before he came to full power would significantly impeded his development. They fought him, being matched blow by blow by the miniature powerhouse of a fighter, each feeling it an honor, when the moment of their deaths came at his hands, to have been able to give themselves to furthering the honor of Black Sky.

“We’ve got to go.” Creel didn’t count the bodies in the dark, he took nothing from the shed, and he said little else as he stepped into the predawn darkness. He cocked his head to the voice inside of it, then shook his head stubbornly. “We are not going back down there. Not tonight. It’s not safe there for…” He scowled but continued barreling on in the opposite direction, towards the heart of town. With luck, he would find them some place to wait out the day, somewhere they could get food at least.

When he noticed that the boy was not at his side, Creel stopped and looked back at the small defiant figure, bare except for the dirty, baggy trousers he always wore, the end of his pole punched into the dirt as if he was challenging the earth itself.

“Not now,” Creel repeated, exasperated. “Sun will be up soon…anyone sees us going in there…so no, not now.” They stared at each other for several silent seconds before Creel, exasperated, muttered. “Fine…yes…when it is safe we’ll go back.”

Iwai would not tell him why he wanted to return, and Creel was reluctant to ask. Not a return to captivity, surely, but perhaps a return for revenge.

The bloody bodies left piled within the work shed were proof that the boy was certainly capable of that.

*

Logan put down the half smoked cigar and leaned forward over the steering column of John’s truck as if it would get him a better view. Work crews illuminated by floodlights scurried in and out of the old subway pit, appearing to be making an effort to shore up the sliding sides.

“Little late for that now,” huffed John, sandwiched between he and Faith and chain smoking his third cigarette since they’d left the apartment.

“Why now?” Faith raked her hair back and tied it there away from her face, preparing for an adventure that did not appear as if it would come. She’d patrolled past the cemetery each of the last three nights, and once each day, casual strolls that she hoped would end with Murdock emerging from the tunnels. No one had been here then, no cops, no work crews, only a handful of inspectors each morning gauging the damage, the danger, the potential threat to the nearby cemetery. The likelihood that someone intended to do something…like filling the pit in at last, had been there, but she hadn’t expected such work to begin so soon. Bureaucracy usually resulted in delays with this sort of thing. That was why it didn’t make sense…unless there was something someone did not want others to see.

“Dunno…we’re not going to be able to sit here long.” No one had paid them attention yet, parked as they were in the cemetery lot, but sooner or later their loitering was going to look suspicious. Someone would ask questions, would ask them to move along.

“Right.” John cleared his throat and pulled a bottle of scotch from his bag. “Let me out.”

Wondering why the exorcist had brought the bottle, or if it was something he always carried in that bag, Logan growled, “John…”

“No one’s going to question a single drunk mourner,” he explained, shooing Faith towards the door, prepared to crawl over her if she did not move.

Mumbling beneath her breath, Faith pushed the creaking door open and slid out of the truck. Getting that close to John Constantine wasn’t a unpleasant thought, as rocking his world had crossed the Slayer’s mind a time or three, but why make things more awkward then they needed to be. Better to get out of his way and let him do his thing. “What about us?”

“Do what any couple would do in a parked vehicle in a private place…” Faith grinned at the suggestion, climbed back into the cab, and closed the door behind her. That was a ruse she could get behind. How better to hide in plain sight…and get a little action on the side.

“It’s a cemetery,” grumbled Logan, “and it’s daylight,” though as he watched John shrug and stagger in a random direction away from the truck, he couldn’t help but side-eye Faith as she pulled her jacket and black tank top off to reveal the black bra…and plenty of creamy, familiar skin. Her hands just as quickly found their way beneath his shirt and were already at work removing it as well.

“Get with the program, Chops…” So long as no funeral procession came, they should be safe. This was the older, less frequented cemetery in Havensport, and a favored spot, she knew, for some of the high school and college crowd to smoke and drink between classes, on their lunch break, or after school. For whatever reason, though the police knew that too, they didn’t often bust the kids for truancy here, usually left them alone. Maybe that had changed after the landslide into the pit, but Faith was counting on things being business as usual for the Havensport PD. Not even the kids, should any show, would look twice at a couple making out in a parked vehicle.

They’d be more likely to harass John. 

“This isn’t…”

“Not ideal, I admit…and we have to watch more than make out…but we might as well look the part.” She grinned again, intentionally mussing his hair before dropping his shirt over the steering wheel.

With his belt coming away next, and his fly opened, Logan’s resistance weakened and he accepted the logic of this particular cover.

He was both relieved, and disappointed, when Faith’s actions ended with her head upon his shoulder so that she could resume the watch. It sure as hell hadn’t taken much in the way of foreplay to get the body interested, even though his brain new there was business at hand.

Damn this was going to be an uncomfortable night.

*

Three more fights, against fewer opponents and each in quarters too close for Clint to utilize his bow, and with each hit, Matt slipped closer and closer towards uselessness. If Clint was forced to carry him out, fighting all the way, he might never get them both out alive…and leaving Matt behind was not an option. Fortunately, they able to detect the large gathering of workmen ahead as the sounds of picks and shovels, muted though it was by the electrical humming vibration of unusual metallic substance, reached them long before they reached another yawning cavern. Pressed to the tunnel’s wall, they observed the brightness of electric light that reflected off the naturally polished surfaces of the walls, the floor, the ceiling above them. It was a pocket rich with this unfamiliar metal, and in the center of the room, a large spherical rough-hewn hunk of it, some fifteen feet in diameter, disappearing into the ceiling, that seemed to radiate light more than deflect it. The workers, digging into the walls with specially crafted tools designed specifically to penetrate the dense material, gave that center stone a wide berth, seemingly afraid to touch it. Clint counted two dozen men hidden behind protective goggles, helmets, and quilted work suits, possibly more in the three alcoves on the other side of the cavern, but at least none of them appeared to be Hand warriors. Yakuza, perhaps, at least the six with machine guns would be, but the others were armed with their sharp tools instead of weapons, dangerous, yes, but not necessarily as deadly as they could have been otherwise.

If they were lucky, those men were not trained to fight, were only here to mine. It might give Matt a higher chance of coming through this on his feet.

“It’s…” Matt cocked his head, scowling, removing one glove long enough to touch his face, to feel the warmth there that seemed an impossibility this far beneath the surface. After tracing the warmth from the edge of the mask to his lips, he put the glove back on.

“It’s what?”

“I don’t…” he shook his head, “alive?”

“Alive?” Scowling, Clint stared again at the huge hunk of stony material, weighing the piece in his pocket with an odd sense of discomfort in his stomach. Did that make this organic rather than metallic? “What the hell…”

Matt’s hand upon his arm yanked him back. “He’s here…”

“Black Sky?” Clint scanned the room from one side to the other, but other than whatever awaited in the alcoves or was hidden by the stone’s mass, saw no child.

“Stick.”

What the hell was a ‘Stick’? Clint wanted to ask, but Matt had already captured the initiative for himself, heaving two large rocks from the floor to strike two of the gun toting men in the heads with enough force to drop them to the ground. Then he was in the thick of the fight, leaving the protection of the corridor’s darkness, forcing Clint to take shots he was not prepared to take.

Remove the guns first, with fully laced bolts. No killing if he could help it, especially since there was the chance, however slim Clint groused, that these miners were here by force rather than by choice. They engaged Matt, but it seemed they fought more for survival than a desire to protect what they were doing, and when the gunmen were removed from the equation, the miners scrambled towards one of the alcoves.

Matt did not pursue. He took down only those who got in his way or tried to stop him. He pushed into a different alcove, as three Hand assassins emerged from the other, seemingly unconcerned for Clint or the miners the archer was now trying to herd into what he guessed must either be a bunkroom or an exit.

Why else would the miners flee there?

“Go on…get out of here!” Matt shouted at them, not sure they spoke English or were listening to him despite their continued scramble out of the room. “Gotta go, D…”

He could manage the three…he hoped…but maybe not for long, and if more arrived…as he assumed they would…his efforts to get Matt out alive were going to be for nothing.

*

“Sir…movement!”

Coulson was not a man to pace. Those who knew him would notice small physical signs of contained tension under moments of stress, things like a twitch of his fingers, the deepening of creases at the corners of his eyes, a slight flaring of his nostrils, but to anyone else he appeared cool and collected, the perfect picture of calm as he waited word that Barton was alive. Four and a half hours without word, without any movement at the monitored exit point, four and a half hours to wonder what was down there, if he’d made the right call sending Barton in alone. But of all those on the vessel, Barton had been at his side the longest, and Phil trusted him.

Without knowing what was down there, however, trusting him might not have been enough to protect him.

The tech’s cry, and a finger pointing at the screen, raised a point of interest the team had not been previously monitoring. The large flood of people exiting the restaurant that stood within easy walking distance from the Brannon Museum was notable both for the panic in which they fled and the unusual attire they wore, something more suited to working in a hostile environment than to working in, or dining at, a posh Japanese restaurant.

Japanese.

Coulson leaned over the tech’s shoulder. “Show me the subterranean scans.”

The wide screen image split, leaving the infrared of the restaurant on one side while the other the tech brought up the requested scans. There were no subway tunnels here, no noticeable passages of any sort save for one vertical tube with two metal ladders that extended down into nothing from a storage room at the rear of the restaurant. With no idea what lay in the unshielded area beneath the abandoned subway lines, the tube had been marked as an unused hatch into the nearby sewer tunnels, perhaps blocked by a previous collapse or put in and never completed once the restaurant, its deed going back nearly thirty years, had been built.

There had been no reason to pay it much attention before, but as some of those within the restaurant now began to descend into it, every fiber in Coulson’s being pushed him to action. “Agent Hunter, get your team in there…find out where that goes…and if Barton’s in there, extract him at once.”

“Yes, sir,” the Brit chirped, scrambling into action, delighted to have the chance to be part of this mission as something other than an observer.

Phil didn’t watch him leave. Lance Hunter knew his job. Coulson had every faith that, whatever the team encountered, they could handle it. It was the only reason he wasn’t suiting up to go in himself.

*

“What the hell are you doing here, kid?” Matt Murdock was the last person the older blind man had expected to show up here.

“I should ask you the same question.” Although, given his previous hunt, and kill, of a child he had dubbed Black Sky, perhaps Matt should have expected his mentor’s involvement. Using one of the knives he had confiscated off of one the Hand assassins, he cut through the cords that bound Stick to an old metal chair. Stick was battered, bloody and bruised, but The Hand had apparently felt he held too much value to kill him, and so they had settled for torturing him instead.

Stick was not the sort of man to bend under torture.

Arm around Matt’s neck as he helped him to stand, Stick asked, “Have you found Black Sky? Did you destroy it?”

“He escaped.”

“Escaped? You’ve gotten soft…”

“Save it. I made it to you, didn’t I…we’re getting you out of here.”

Stick abruptly lurched away from Matt’s side, creating space between them through which the hurled stars passed harmlessly to bounce off the stone wall on the opposite side of the alcove. “Not without a fight you’re not.”

“D…come on!” Their attacker arched forward, propelled by the bolt that struck him low in the back, and though he twisted around to confront the archer, the sleep agent on the tip did its job and dropped him to the ground. “There’s more on the way.”

“Undoubtedly,” Stick said wrly, stepping over the fallen man to follow Clint out of the room. He’d barely passed through the alcove’s opening when two assassins jumped them, one that he struck down with two swift, deft blows to the throat and the other that Matt, launching himself through the narrow gap between Stick and the door’s frame, managed to catch in the face with his foot. When the assassin wheeled sideways, knocked off his feet by the unexpected blow, he was met with Clint grabbing his head and slamming it into the wall. He too fell and did not move.

“There…the alcove…”

From where they were, Matt could feel the air current that revealed of a passage out of the tunnels into fresh air above; it was the way many of the miners had fled, and so seemed their best hope of escape. He wanted to stay, to fight, to find the boy if he was still here, but instinct told him the cavern was soon to be overrun and that even climbing was going to be difficult with The Hand on their assess.

*

Hunter had no idea how many men might have made it through that hatch before he and his team of six stormed the restaurant, their gear and the specialized Heli carrier suggesting SWAT, or some covert government ops team, with Hunter’s ID badge convincing enough to cause the officers just arriving on the scene to stand down to a perimeter sweep for suspects and to keep an eye on the outside of the building to prevent anyone else from entering. The Unit’s intel indicated six, and the scopes on the team’s rifles was able to pick out four of that number somewhere down into darkness. Four shots was all it took, four kills that dropped from the ladder moments before the other two, and any gone before, were lost to the scanners, protected by whatever shielding lay below their feet.

He was confident none of those four had been Barton; they had been moving downwards and Barton, if he was there, should be coming up.

“Keep a watch…I’m going in.”

None of his team questioned his orders, no matter how insane it seemed for him to go in alone.

*

With Stick between them, the trio began to climb, Clint surprised at how nimble the old man was in spite of his injuries. Matt was right behind him, moving with a speed that was almost pushing them upwards, his progress while injured less of a surprise to Clint. If this Stick was his mentor, as Matt had claimed, it was clear to see where he had learned some of his skills. It wasn’t a surprise either when the three of them separated, pressing to different sides of the shaft, in response to gunfire from the darkness above and the gradual thud, thud, thud, of the four bodies hitting the walls and the ladders iron rungs as they fell. Clint couldn’t see them, even when one shoed foot struck his shoulders, but it didn’t take a blind man’s senses to pick up the heavy accumulation of food smells that followed the falling dead.

Our side, he wondered of the shooters, or was someone shooting innocent people and dropping them down the shaft?

There was no choice but to continue climbing.

Stick coughed. “We’ve got company…”

Not Hand. Matt heard them too, and soon enough, Clint would be able to as well. Kitchen smells continued to waft from above where the darkness, as they continued upwards, began to brighten little by little. Three of the sets of soft rubber soles, slipping and sliding with inexperienced haste, might not even be combatants, but the set above them was hard rubber, like the military grade boots of a soldier, and belonged to someone who was making no effort to proceed with stealth. His pace was such, his equipment high grade, that he caught sight of the three, braced himself in the hatch and took his shots.

Once more, three shots, three skills.

“Jesus,” muttered Clint, barely making it aside as the bodies began to drop. Hopefully they would take out a few of those who were pursued them up the shaft, who would gain on them if they had to keep stopping every time gunfire filled the air. Of course, if whoever was firing was a hostile, he, Murdock and the old man were going to be fish in a very dark barrel.

Obeying the voice in his ear piece, Hunter halted his descent where Unit could continue to monitor him, where they might be able to identify who was coming up in time for him to shoot if necessary and avoid any attack in return. But when that barrier was crossed, the familiar tracker beacon lit up and Hunter grinned ear to ear.

“Beginning to worry about you, Barton,” he quipped, squeezing tight against the ladder where he perched to allow his teammate to pass.

“Hunter…good to see you, buddy. Good to know you’re on our side with those…”

“Yeah, sorry about that, mate…couldn’t take any chances, you know. How many…?”

“Two with me…and too many to count behind them.” Clint continued to scurry towards the surface.

“Gotcha.” Hunter shoulder the rifle to lend the others a hand.

Those climbing behind them on stealthy feet, predators Clint and Hunter could not hear but nonetheless sensed to be there were near enough now that Matt, hesitating his ascent to give Stick enough cover to get free of the shaft, listened to the breaths of the undulating climbers, bodies that wove back and forth from one ladder to the next, keeping their mass enough of a chaotic mess that most would have difficulty targeting a single individual accept for the few at the front of the group. One of those at the front was target enough. Between shifts from one ladder to the other, following the man’s intermittent breath, when only one hand held tight to the metal rung, Matt threw the knife he still carried and impaled the man’s hand, destroying his grip, causing him to fall as a result. As the previous falling bodies had done, their climb was slowed, their efforts at camouflage disrupted…

But it was not enough to prevent an attack in kind, the well-aimed launch of a manriki-gusari, the chain wrapping around Matt’s throat as weighted end struck him in the temple with enough force to render him unconscious. Stick had just enough warning to snatch Matt’s wrist as he lost his footing and began to fall, the force of that fall and the grip of Stick’s hand enough to wrench Matt’s shoulder from its socket and enough to cause Stick to slip as well. Above him, Clint was able to grab hold of the old man’s arm while Hunter, in his position just above Matt, was able to take hold of him and support his weight well enough to let Clint pull Stick to safety.

“Up ya go…” It was a dangerous position, balanced with his feet, steadied with his knees, as he heaved Matt’s unconscious form up into the waiting hands of the rest of his team. He had just relinquished his hold when something wrapped around his ankle, something sharp penetrating the thickness of leather of his boot and puncturing his ankle…something held by some still out of sight of his goggles who yanked and attempted to pull him down.”

“Like hell,” Hunter snarled, kicking sideways in a move that dislodged the blade, with a great deal of pain and blood. “Grenade!” he shouted to the team above him.

“Concussion or…”

“Just throw the bloody thing!” he cried, hands now emerging from the sensor-free zone, hands reaching for him. If he climbed fast, he might just make it out by the time the pin was pulled and the grenade dropped.

Click.

Shit. He climbed faster, hindered by his bloody ankle and the surely damaged tendons. Not yet…please, not yet.

He passed out of the shaft as the grenade was dropped. Members of his team scrambled to close the shaft door and keep it closed as the blast shook the entire room.


	28. 28

“What the hell is that?”

Clint shrugged to his teammate’s question as they, and Coulson, studied the images on the screen. He’d thought the symbols were of significant enough interest when he noted them in the cavern that he managed to snap a few less than perfect images before dashing in to help Matt with Stick’s rescue. Perhaps if he had not, they would have gotten out in time to avoid Matt’s most recent injuries, but the man was being treated in the infirmary with all of the best equipment in the world and Coulson’s expression as he studied the symbols proved to Clint that his call had been a valuable one.

“I know a guy who might be able to tell us…” Coulson looked at Clint. “John Constantine. This is his thing. We could spend days researching it…”

“We don’t have days,” interrupted Stick, who could not see the screen image but did not need to. He knew enough about what they were up against to make a decision without unnecessary deliberation. This group of bureaucrats was going to bog things down, but, from what he sensed of the vessel around him, there was enough technology and capability here to do what needed to be done. He just had to convince the one in charge to take action.

Scowling, Clint continued, “or we give it to Constantine and have an answer in hours…”

“And we don’t have hours…”

“There are people down there…lives at stake,” snapped Coulson. “Until I know what we’re dealing with…what that substance is…”

“It’s strong enough to keep out our sensors is what it is,” Hunter interjected, rubbing the back of his neck.

Clint nodded, “And hard enough…I don’t know how they were even mining it…or processing it…”

“It’s not vibranium…it’s not adamantium. It’s not in our data base, but we’re studying it now.”

“It will make Black Sky the most dangerous weapon in history if the two are brought together…”

“Black Sky is a child.” Clint, the only one on the ship to have seen him, threw the old man a scathing look, realizing where some of Matt’s tone of voice had come from when referring to his mentor. He imagined the old fellow was an infuriating teacher.

“Black Sky is a weapon…or will be if given what he needs to ascend to his full power.”

“Then we just might want to prepare for that eventuality.”

Stick grabbed the front of Clint’s shirt. “What do you mean? What aren’t you saying…”

“Enough.” Coulson’s hand caught Stick’s wrist firmly, pushing it down to force him to release Clint. If he knew anything about Stick’s nature, his abilities, it neither frightened nor concerned him. “Barton…bring Mr. Constantine here. Hunter, I’m putting you in charge of the continuing search for Creel and Black Sky…”

“Creel?” Hunter’s guard, and his irritability level, immediately went up. He had a history with that man, and if Creel had added kidnapping or child abuse and endangerment to his list of crimes, Hunter would be all too glad to take him down. He had not heard mention of Creel’s involvement before, but this might have been new intel, something learned from the man in the red suit they’d extracted from the tunnels. “You’ve got it boss.”

“And you and I…Mr. Stick…are going to have a conversation.” Phil wanted to know what the man knew, not just his predictions of doom and broad sweeping statements of the danger they faced, but any actual facts he had. “Barton, let me know as soon as you get back with Constantine.”

“And you’ll keep me updated on…” The tilt of Clint’s head in the direction of the infirmary completed his sentence.

“If there’s any change, you’ll know it.” Clint was a caring soul, just as likely to see teammates as brothers and sisters as he was to shelter newcomers with a parental like ease. It was a quality those in this business often lost, in Coulson’s experience, and he intended to nurture it in Clint for as long as they could make that quality last.

*

Hours had ticked by and nothing had changed at the abandoned subway site beyond the continuing flow of workers in and out of the pit and the lowering of cement barriers intended to hinder any further collapse of the earthen walls. It appeared there was no immediate intention of filling the hole in, and Logan suspiciously wondered why. Was there still plans to build that subway line?

If Murdock was here, the lawyer would certainly be able to get such information from whatever city planners, lawyers, and politicians might be involved. But Murdock wasn’t here, and with every passing hour, he fretted more and more that the man was lost.

That would be a damn shame.

“Get Constantine…we’re out of here…”

Though Faith wanted to protest, Logan’s choice was valid and logical. They were wasting time here, finding nothing. They needed to regroup, reassess the situation, and come up with a new plan. They weren’t getting back into the tunnels from here, and waiting for Matt, for something that might never happen was getting them nowhere. They had to find that boy. That had to be their first order of business…and that boy certainly wasn’t here at the cemetery.

With her tanktop already pulled over her head, she slid out of the car, while Logan started the engine, restlessly refusing to waste time. The roar was loud enough, familiar enough, that John heard and recognized it and met Faith half way back to the truck.

“He wants to head back.”

John nodded. He’d begun to believe that loitering here, which was gradually beginning to attract the notice of the work crews, had gone on long enough. “You two go one…think I’ll walk…”

“All the way across town?” Skeptical of his motivation, since John wasn’t typically one for leisurely strolls, Faith side-eyed him as they continued back to the parked truck.

“Got a few stops to make…want to clear my head…” He wanted to eat, another bottle of whiskey, a pack of cigarettes, but mostly he wanted to follow the ley line map he carried in his trench coat pocket to learn what, if anything that would tell him. That this was one of three intersection points of power in Havensport, that The Hand had chosen to set up shop here, did not seem to be a coincidence to him. Maybe examining the second, on the far south western edge of Havensport, would reveal something he was overlooking. Since he couldn’t explain to the others what he was looking for, not knowing it himself, it made more sense for him to investigate on his own.

Unless someone from the fight the other night recognized him, or knew him by reputation, he figured he was an unassuming enough bloke to get by without raising questions from any Yakuza he might encounter along the way.

“When I’ get tired of walking, I’ll catch a cab.” What he wouldn’t give, he thought with a stab of melancholy, to have Chaz around now.

Logan caught those words, made a snap assumption as to what the precursor had been, and nodded. “Don’t be out long…we need a new plan.”

“That we do,” John agreed. Maybe his walk would provide him with exactly that.

Greasy fries and fried fish, a cheap bottle of booze and even cheaper packet of cigarettes later, and John was rolling out of the cab at the head of the long tree-lined road that led to the Brannon Museum. Like the center Ley line point of conjunction, this one was also wide, nearly a half mile in diameter, the circle encompassing the intersection, the museum, and the host of small touristy businesses that dotted the route to the museum. Fine dining venues, craft and book and antique shops, along with other tiny stores that tourists favored, all of which did well enough along this path to eke out a living in spite of the recession, and as John passed each one, feeling the prickle of energy that only those sensitive to magic might detect, he wondered how much of their success was due to the museum and its patronage and how much was due to the power-infused ground upon which they had been built.

There was chaos still in front of Havensport’s single Japanese restaurant, chaos that, given recent events and the money and powers behind them, suggested to John something far more than the ‘gas leak’ he heard the fire personal and law enforcement officers bandy about to the representatives of the local paper and television station. The huddle of individuals wearing some sort of quilted work gear might support that report, except that to John, even as far away as he was, they looked too terrified to have been a crew dealing with a gas leak…and looked nothing like the gas company personnel who were also on the scene.

By John’s calculations, where that restaurant stood was not far from what should be the exact conjunction point, the position of the greatest power…and seeing the restaurant now, with so many Japanese men and women in business suits lingering about, none of this struck John as coincidental.

Something was here. Something he believed the Yakuza wanted, which meant that directly, or indirectly, it was connected to Black Sky.

With so many rescue personnel, several city politicians, news reporters, and looky-lues, no one gave the newly landing black helicopter more than a glance, not even John who was trying to decide what ruse he could use to get into the thick of this investigation in order to examine the area closer for himself. The chopper remained where it was, rotors chopping the air and creating a powerful wind current, but John wasn’t so vain as to care about his hair. He did draw his coat around him to prevent it from flapping in the wind, however. When someone placed their hand upon his shoulder, although he was startled, he expected it to be some military type from the nearby base telling him he had to move along.

Instead he was surprised to see the archer who had aided in their extraction from the pit not so many nights before.

“John Constantine…we need your help.”

The words were shouted over the sound of the chopper, and though distorted were easy enough to make out. “Me?”

“There’s something we need you to see…”

“Sorry, mate…I was taught never to accept rides from strangers.” As intrigued as he was, he had business here, more pressing business then helping out this fellow and his boss with whatever puzzle they had stumbled across.

Clint, having expected difficulty from the wary exorcist, nodded once and added, “We’ve found Murdock.”

For a moment, John blinked, half disbelieving what his ears had heard. But if there was even a chance that the archer was telling the truth, then it would be worth going with him. He nodded back and followed Clint back to the helicopter, ducking his head when the archer did, buckling himself in when Clint did, waiting to speak again until the helicopter was in the air.

He couldn’t remember having ridden in one before. He decided he had not, for surely he would not have forgotten something he easily concluded he did not like. Fortunately, the trip was a short one, up, towards the mountains in the west, and then landing…not upon the ground, but upon a vessel that was not there one moment and then appeared out of nowhere the next.

“How is he?” Talking about Murdock would distract him from the hundreds of other questions he was dying to ask.

“Alive…being treated for his injuries, but he’ll be fine. I’ll take you to see him later, when he wakes…but first, like I said…” Clint exited the helicopter and motioned for John to follow him. “There’s something we need you to see.”

“Of course there is.” He half expected that the lure of Murdock’s survival was simply used to get him here, where the archer and his boss had wanted John, Faith, and Logan to be days before. Led into a room full of high tech screens, computers, and equipment John would never know the purpose of, he saw at once what it was that they had wanted him to see.

Coulson and the blind man Stick were already there, expressions business-like and neutral but with enough tension in the air between them to suggest that their conversation, and its conclusion or compromise, had not been entirely to either man’s liking. “Welcome aboard, Mr. Constantine…”

“John, please…you make me sound like my bloody father.”

“John it is.” Phil waved him over. “Clint seems to think you can help us with this…tell us what it is…what it does…what it says.”

“Dunno what that is…” He pointed at the craggy sphere of stone at the center of the picture, “but that…” When he touched the screen, the image grew large enough to fill the viewing area. “Where is that?”

“Down there,” Coulson replied, “below the restaurant you were observing…”

“Not directly under,” corrected Clint, who shrugged apologetically at the scolding glance Coulson gave him, “But close enough…”

“The map…show me the map again…” The tech complied, and John took out the map from his pocket to hold up next to the screen. “Would you say right about here?” A short ways behind and to the right of the restaurant, where a thick copse of oak grew.

Clint nodded. “Yes…more or less exactly there.”

Phil motioned for the paper map and Clint spread it on the desk in front of them. “What are these?” He indicated the lines crisscrossing the map, quickly noting the way certain areas on the map were marked with symbols and colors that seemed more significant than others. This location, as well as one that roughly coincided with the subway construction site and cemetery, bore identical map markings and colors, as did a third location far outside the city to the north east, right along the coast line.

“Ley lines…” As expected, the words meant little to the more science grounded types around him, although he could tell he had gotten the attention of the elderly blind man. “Think of them as the unseen highways along which power flows around the globe.”

“Power? You mean electricity?”

“He means magic,” Stick muttered in a tone that suggested he was making realizations he had not previously considered.

“That…that’s Brittonic…the writing of ancient Britain…around the time the Romans were there…more specifically the precursor to Old Welsh…Cumbric…Cornish…Breton. Too ancient to be…there’s no reason it should exist here…”

Except that it did, and now John wanted to see it for himself.

Appreciating John’s enthusiasm and knowledge and the fact that it appeared Clint’s recommendation of bringing the blonde man in had been the right choice, Coulson asked, “What does it say? Can you read it?”

“I’d need my references to be certain…to fully read it…but judging by this…” he pointed to the clearest series of symbols on the second image, “I’d say it’s a ward.”

“For protection? To protect that stone?” asked Clint.

“Or to protect others from it,” Phil said. “We already know that this substance conducts energy with remarkable efficiency. Not only conducts it…generates it…like a giant battery.”

“It sits at a convergence…where multiple ley lines intersect…where power passes and redistributes. It makes sense that such locations are stores for energy deposits…that such places could be generators as well as distribution hubs,” speculated John.

Clint tapped the map upon the table. “There seems to be veins of…whatever material this is made from…running out from here…and though I didn’t have a compass, am not sure what route I took to get from here,” he pointed to the cemetery, “to here,” he moved his finger to the restaurant along one of the colored ley line markers, “it could have been along this line. Could this stuff have anything to do with…”

Shrugging, John scowled. “I’ve never been able to follow a ley line from underground…I don’t know anyone who has…but…it’s possible.” The rush of chaotic implications that bombarded him had to be pushed aside.

“And tapping into any one of these points could be enough to allow Black Sky access to unlimited power.”

“Or the power could be harnessed in the mined stone.”

Stick’s words, and Coulson’s subsequent suggestion, filled John’s belly with cold weight. “If it could be done…if it could be harnessed that way…any way…god knows what the Yakuza…The Hand…wants with it, but I don’t think it can be good.”

“Can we dispel it? Knock it out?”

“You can’t disrupt a ley line…” At least, nothing in John’s research and experience suggested it could be done.

“But we can disrupt their access to it,” Stick snapped. “We have to…”

“There are thousands…maybe millions…of points like this around the globe,” John pointed out. “If Black Sky needs…”

“And if all of these points contain this metal…”

“We can’t worry about all of them…or about what might happen…we can only deal with this one,” Coulson sighed. “We don’t know if this metal is peculiar to here…how easy it is to find and access…but we can cut off their supply here.”

“We should know what this says…why it’s there…” John realized it sounded like begging, but he didn’t care. “It could be a warning…hell, it could even be a means of releasing the power from that point. The words seem to wrap around the base…until I read the whole thing…”

“There’s bloody ninjas down there,” grunted Hunter, the first time he’d spoken since the meeting had begun. He knew nothing about magic, nothing about ley lines and mystery metals, but he knew combat and he knew what it was that had tried to kill him down in that hatch. “You go in there, you’re taking your life in your hands…”

“Won’t be the first time.” John raked his hand through his hair.

“How much time would you need to decipher it?” asked Coulson.

“If I have my references…maybe an hour.”

After doing some mental calculations in his head, Phil nodded, his mind made up. “Clint…take him to his resources…get what you need. Hunter, you’ll help me ready the teams…we’ll only get one shot at this. We’ve identified as many entry points as we can…given what we now know…we get in, do what we have to do, and get out.”

John didn’t know what Coulson planned, and he did not care so long as he had the chance to get at that ward and access the danger it might be to them, either in leaving it or breaking it. He did, however, have one piece of advice to give.

“If you shoot…shoot to kill,” he muttered, knowing that Murdock was going to kill him later if he heard about this. “The Hand…some of them at least…aren’t going to go down easy…if at all. Take their heads or incapacitate them and run like hell…”

“Why?” asked the tech. Yakuza, he knew. The Hand was little more than a rumored ghost he had yet to meet for himself or see proof of.

“Because they’re immortal,” Stick replied.

Hunter rolled his eyes and clenched his fists. “Lovely…that’s just lovely.” Well, with any luck, Creel and this Black Sky thing would be in those tunnels, and when it was over, they would never be a threat to anyone ever again.


	29. 29

“There…”

It was a fluke of circumstance that put Logan and Faith at the auto garage to pick up her car at the same instance that man and boy they had been seeking disappeared into the neighboring alley. They certainly had not been looking for the child called Black Sky by being there, and when they darted after the pair to a dead end, the only options of detour being a locked door and the fire escape above it that led up to a series of windows…only one of which was open. Faith, more lithe and limber, was the first up, the first through that window…and the first to crash back through it, squarely into Logan’s chest.

But it wasn’t Creel who had thrown her, rather it was one of an indeterminate number of Hand assassins, most of whom were engaged in battle elsewhere, seeming to be in the corridor now as Logan charged, claws bared, to impale the assassin who had tried to kill his friend. The conflict was brief, with two of them ganged up on the one, but by the time it was over with the ninja beheaded at Logan’s feed and Faith wiping blood from her forehead, the fighting in the corridor had ceased.

Cautiously, claws first, Logan stepped out of the room, keeping Faith close behind him. This floor of the building looked to be in the midst of renovation, part of the city’s effort to provide low cost housing, and the rest had seemed empty and abandoned when they had passed it to the garage. Now, amidst the tools, the smashed drywall and spilled buckets of paint, the black and red clad members of The Hand lay strewn one by one in a trail that led to the inside staircase.

“Don’t touch anything,” Logan grunted, “and watch for the paint.”

“Not planning on touching anything.” Their footprints in the white powdery dust, even though mixed with those left by The Hand and their quarry, would be incriminating enough, whether they avoided the paint or not, and the claw marks in the decapitated man were likely to prove to be another black mark on Logan’s record. Heaven forbid anyone learn Logan had been here. “Think you’d better go back the way we came…not raise any questions with the mechanics.”

Logan was about to protest her proceeding alone, but there was logic to her suggestion that he could not refute. Maybe he could find some way to ditch the body before the cops ever arrived. He glanced at the sun’s position. Late afternoon on a Friday. No workers were likely to return before Monday, and Monday was the usual trash collection day in this part of town. With luck, Logan could get that body in the dumpster, bury it with construction debris, and no one would ever know the truth.

Or else The Hand would come and collect their dead and the police would be left out of the incident entirely.

The echo of a closing door below them brought them to the window in time to see man and boy darting through the back alley, a workman’s lunch pale and a military backpack in tow. Theft of supplies made sense if they were living rough, trying to stay out sight of both The Hand and the four strangers who had come into their lives to destroy a little boy. Judging by the dead around them now, most of who bore no defensive wounds only blood around mouth, noses, ears and eyes that suggested an inner pressure had led to some form of swelling…an internal explosion even…Logan figured it was too late to stop the maturation and ascension process now. That damage had not been Creel’s doing. Those deaths were on the boy.

“We go door to door…check every building in the neighborhood,” he decided, “and we find that boy. But I think…” He sighed. “We’re going to need John’s rock first.” That stone…whatever it was…had obviously not killed Creel, might not even kill a kami…but it was, Logan feared, the only chance they would have of stopping him while his powers were still expanding. The longer they waited, the less likely it would be that anything would stop him.

*

Little by little, the words of John’s translation took form, but what he was learning came as much from the air about him as it did from the words etched in stone. Yes there was power in the metallic substance, yes it conducted power, directed it. That alone could be of benefit to someone, for good or ill. But the generation of power came not from the metal itself, nor from the ley lines that channeled the ebb and flow through the region, not from the earth in which it had once been encased and which now formed the pedestal on which it rested. The generation of it came from the ancient spirit bound here, something older than the kami, something, John suspected, as ancient as the earth itself. A life…an existence, trapped for centuries by the words that encircled it, a spirit gradually dying with the passage of time and the mining of the substance around it, feeding it, the only thing allowing it to continue to exist.

There was no evil in the thing, none that John could detect at any rate, although there was some question as to who, or what, would have dared bind a benevolent spirit this way. A benevolent spirit should be freed. If it was malevolent…well, John would have had little reason to free it. He could turn his back on it or continue with the un-warding spell and send it back to the hell that spawned it, yes…but he could not leave it here were anyone knowledgeable in the ways of magic might be able to make use of it…just as it appeared The Hand intended to do.

But John could send it back, to heaven, to hell, to the natural realm that had been its womb instead of destroying it…and if in doing so he could garner a favor or two…well, wasn’t that worth the risk?

“I’m going to take care of this…”

Clint squinted at the symbols…letters according to John, and muttered, “You can do that?” John had already shared his suspicion that this thing contained life, a snag none of them had been expecting and which put a different spin on what they were doing. To do nothing might be to bury a living creature alive. To free it might be inviting chaos.

In the distance, the sounds of sporadic gunfire reminded them just how little time they had. John was right. Nothing living should be kept trapped this way without reason…and they did not have time to debate it now. This was a clear case of act now and ask questions later.

“I’m the best shot you’ve got.” The only shot, but why be cocky? And why, he thought as he pulled several items from his bag, admit that there was always a chance that this could go horribly wrong?

*

As consciousness began to replace the emptiness in his brain, he realized he was not as stiff as he thought he should be…and the pain of fractured ribs, of bruised muscles, small cuts and abrasions, and the myriad of other injuries he should be feeling now were gone, erased from his body in a way that suggested he had been unconscious for more days then he cared to think about. So much to do…so much at stake…he couldn’t be lying about when there was work to be completed. His eyes snapped open, but instead of the apartment bedroom he expected to see, he lay in some sort of medical facility, a room with sophisticated high-tech instruments and monitoring equipment that beeped and whirred as it kept track of his heartrate, his pulse, his breathing…and with his waking, a series of tones, almost musical in their pattern, was set off, alerting someone, he imagined, to the fact that their patient was awake. This was no normal hospital. He sat abruptly, ripped the sensor tabs and needles from his body, and struggled to his feet.

He might no longer be in pain, but his body was taut as if he had spent too many days bedridden.

And, he realized only then, he was naked.

That filled him with an entirely different panic, for if he was in a hospital, taken there without his consent, how many people now knew the identity of the Daredevil? It was the closest the man without fear had come to real terror in a long time.

It was with some relief that his suit was located nearby, hung over the back of a chair, safe and sound. Of course, he might have been unconscious long enough for anyone with the means to have studied its protective properties, but he did not think that had happened. Anyone interested in that would probably have kept the suit, and if he was to be arrested, or handed over to the authorities, the suit would probably have been confiscated as evidence.

With no other clothes nearby, he donned the suit, relaxing even more when his body was safe in its second skin, his identity were no longer so vulnerably exposed.

He listened as he dressed to the variety of the machines, the electronic hum of a vast computer network, and the continual drone of engines that revealed he was in a vessel of some sort. The study of further details, air pressure, the rush of air against the vessel’s sides, the slight buffeting of the vessel in the wind, hinted at an air ship, something stationary instead of mobile like a plane, but not, he immediately decided, a helicopter. A whirr of blades kept them airborne, yes, but the sound was not right to be a helicopter, and there were multiple rotors at work instead of one or two. Not to mention, he had never heard of a helicopter large enough to house its own infirmary.

What Matt did not hear were people, either the approach of someone in response to the medical monitors or in the room immediately outside where he stood. There were distant voices, someone in the cockpit, three others in a central rom, and one more pacing the length of what Matt gauged to be a hangar of some sort. If the vessel he was on was large enough to carry other crafts, it was definitely no helicopter.

Mask in place to hide what those individuals might know of him, Matt crept out of the infirmary, into a long corridor that ran left and right of his position, left to the rear towards the hangar and right towards the cockpit and whatever room the largest collection of people were gathered. That was the direction Matt chose, their quiet, intermittent dialogue the magnet that pulled him.

Through the sliding glass panels that separated the hall from what he determined to be the headquarters of what was likely a military or mercenary warship, he pressed his fingers to the panel, felt and listened, to the discussions, the information shared between individuals, the voices coming across radio channels from somewhere below, hoping for clues as to where he was and how he had gotten here. His last memories had been of the shaft climb, of Stick and Clint and The Hand in pursuit. He did not remember the blow to the temple that had knocked him out, or the near fall and rescue that had come after.

Perhaps, he decided, turning all of his focus to listening now, this was Clint’s doing. It was the only explanation that made sense, but it also opened up a host of questions that would need to be answered as soon as this day was over.

*

John wasn’t answering his phone. To say it pissed Logan off would be an understatement, regardless of Faith’s reminder that John kept his own unusual, intermittent hours and could be off researching some other solution to their problem. Logan felt it more likely the exorcist had passed out drunk somewhere, was sleeping off a bender. Despite the fact that John had come through for them thus far, Logan was growing less convinced of the man’s reliability. But was it really John’s fault that the spell had failed before? Without Murdock to question on the events of that night, to ask about John’s conviction that Matt had been the one to ruin the casting, there was only John’s word to take for it, and the longer it took for John to call him back, the more Logan wondered about the truth.

Logan debated returning to Tigh Ard, finding John’s room, looking for that stone himself. But he could not risk being seen there, risk the questions that would invariably be asked of him about his absence and his second disappearance. Nor did he believe that Constantine would be stupid enough to leave such a powerful object in a drawer, in a closet, under his bed, where anyone else might be able to find it, use it…die when touching it. John could be reckless with his own life, even with the lives of others when it came to shutting down evil, but he was no fool. He obviously had a stash of magical objects, books, tools for spellcasting, but Logan had no idea where that stash was…and he did not have the time to track it down. If they couldn’t find John, they had to proceed without him and hope that, between the two of them, they could stop Black Sky from killing anyone else. Anyone, that was, except Hand agents.

Let that boy kill as many of them as he wanted. It would make Logan’s job at finding him that much easier.

But their door-to-door progress through the garage’s neighborhood, houses and shops and passersby, provided no leads as to where man and boy might be. They might have been passing through this neighborhood on their way to somewhere else rather than holed up nearby, but there were no clues, no trail to follow, that suggested where that somewhere else might be. Hell, maybe the fellow could drive, had snagged a car, and was now far out of Havensport.

Logan was willing to bet, however, that wasn’t the case. If that was an option, after so many days of being hunted, surely he would have taken it already.

Two more buildings, one each, and then Logan was ready to call it a night. At this late hour, banging on doors was likely to win them the wrath of the residents rather than helpful answers. Even if the bald man had doubled back, had circled around to take a room somewhere west of the garage, their chances of finding the pair were slim. Logan hated to admit it, but they needed Murdock’s ears if they were going to make short order of this quest.

And he still didn’t know, as he knocked on the next door he came to, if they would ever see the Devil again.

*

“All of the charges are in place, sir.” Covered in blood now from more than a few fights, limping worse and nursing a headache that felt as if it would rupture his skull, he had checked in with every single team he could reach to be sure the work was done. He had to wiggle up through the narrow tunnel to a level where communication between himself and Coulson was possible, and once below to get clear the tunnels, he would have to rely on his team’s speed to avoid being trapped down here himself.

He wasn’t leaving until every one of the team was safe.

“Then get everyone out of there, Hunter.”

Coulson tapped his ear com, removed it, and rubbed the inside of his ear with his finger before putting it back into place. His team had experienced casualties; he did not know how many but he had heard each burst of gunfire that reverberated through the tunnel at his feet and knew that some of the losses had to be his. Thankfully, Hunter was not one of those, and, he assumed, none were Clint or John Constantine either. He braced himself for the report of their losses, dwelling on brief silent odes to their bravery, their sacrifice, without knowing who he had lost. There was never family to notify, those who worked with him, for him, had no one outside of the team, no one to mourn them, no one to go to. The team was its own family, with Coulson as their patriarch, and if he did not acknowledge the good deeds, the work each team member did that made a difference in the world while the world went on without knowledge of their existence, no one would.

The names and faces he would discover later.

The old man at his side, unable to see anything but observing more, Phil knew, then he could without a com piece in his ear, continued to wear a pensive frown. Coulson had brought him only so that he would not be unsupervised on the plane. No one on that ship would be a match for the old man, and when Stick had insisted on coming, to see for himself that the tunnels were destroyed, Coulson had concluded it was the best choice of action.

At least the six around them had a better chance of subduing stick than any of the techs or the pilot on the plane. Only Murdock would have been more useful, but until the devil was healed and awakened, Coulson had to monitor Stick himself.

When the com piece was replaced in his ear, he tapped it again. “Barton…how’s it going?” he asked, hoping for a response he was not likely to get. The plane’s sensors did not penetrate here, and the coms were little better, but there had been moments, over the course of the evening, when brief bursts of dialogue…or other sounds…had come across the coms. It was worth trying. The hour was late, the sky outside dark behind heavy clouds, and the air smelled of unfallen rain and ozone. It had taken some doing to convince the local authorities to allow Coulson’s ‘government agency’ to step in and handle the ‘investigation’ into the supposed gas leak in the restaurant. Nearby businesses had been evacuated, the museum as well, and the road had been barricaded at each end to keep traffic out of the vicinity. If anything came up out of that shaft that shouldn’t, be it Hand assassins or something else, Coulson wanted to be prepared to put down trouble before it was too late.

He had wanted to give local emergency crews a heads up, prepare them for what was about to go down, in case the results were more damaging then expected, but since there was no way to explain what was happening beneath their city, in the shadows of their streets, Coulson had deemed it more prudent to keep the actions of his team a secret and to do their best to limit the repercussions of the night’s efforts. Circumvent the politics and hope the hospitals, the police men, the firemen, and any military men and women, would be enough to contain any above ground chaos.

Clint shrugged, though he knew the action would not be seen, a little surprised to have that one question come through his com device when so much other communication had not. John was waving one hand, a sprig of some sort of dried plant dangling out the side of his mouth as he mumbled the ancient words…at least Clint hoped they were words, that were intended to remove the ward from the stone and destroy whatever ‘life’ was held here. At least, the instructions had been to destroy everything here, render it useless to the Hand, and Clint believed that applied to whatever entity of power resided here.

Unable to understand what John was saying or doing, Clint couldn’t be sure exactly what John was trying to accomplish.

He moved away to stand beneath the shaft, hoping it would permit a better chance of communication between himself and the man at the top. “It’s going…a few more minutes…”

Relieved to have been heard, and to get a reply that revealed both men to still be alive, Coulson asked, “How many? I don’t want to drag this out…”

Clint opened his mouth to reply, but a gesture from John, one that looked like it had been a request to wait, to have patience, but might have been some part of the ritual he was performing, cut off his reply.

“Can’t exactly interrupt him to ask,” he said to Phil’s question. “Don’t think interrupting would be a good idea just yet.”

Peering into the shaft where John, Clint, and four armed agents had gone, Coulson frowned. “Has there been any trouble there?” The powerful spotlight beaming over his shoulder was barely strong enough to reach the bottom, revealing the vague image of Clint far below.

Clint glanced in the direction of the light and waved one hand to acknowledge that he saw it. He was too far away to get even shadows or silhouettes of any of the men above him. “None, sir…no sign of anyone.”

“They’re still there…”

Coulson scowled at Stick’s words, but did not acknowledge them. Of course there would be people in there still. There seemed to be few members of The Hand scattered above ground throughout Havensport, which meant they had to be hiding somewhere…somewhere they could not be easily located. Those tunnels, both levels of them, seemed the most likely place for them to be. Taking out their hub of operation ought to purge Havensport of their influence.

“Good…very well. We’re ready…Hunter’s sending the teams up now. Get up here as fast you as you can; with the others are vacating now, any Hand operatives are going to come your way…”

Only half hearing the conversation, but realize the pressure was on for the ritual to be completed, pressure by Coulson and by however many other Hand assassins might still be below, John continued with his ritual with renewed vigor, feeling the ancient spirit’s stretch, pull, and pulse as he weakened the magical threads that held it to this place. He had repeated the incantation twice and was nearing the end of the third, as his sources had instructed it to be done, but he still felt no certainty that his efforts would succeed.

When he had one final step to take, the incantation itself done, he closed the book, tucked it under his arm, and waved the soldiers away towards Clint and the exit. It would leave him vulnerable to attack, but as exposed as he was to the spirit and its power, John doubted the Hand would be any more dangerous to him then what he already faced. And without knowing what would happen next, he did not want to be the one to put Clint and the others in unnecessary danger. Best they get out of here now.

“Coming up,” Clint said into the com, ordering the four soldiers into the alcove and up the shaft even as the echo of many running feet erupted from the one tunnel that fed this room where he and Matt had been hours before. Too noisy to be the Hand, and too many of them to fight.

John heard them too. Sprig of herbs dabbed to the sweat on his forehead and into the blood of the cut he made across his palm, he side-eyed Clint as if ordering him to go. But the owners of the footsteps were close, nearly upon them, and Clint, rather than enter the shaft himself, readied his bow, intent on giving John whatever time he needed to finish the ritual.

If it would weaken Black Sky, prevent his full ascension as John hoped, there was no other choice.

The herbs were then touched to the stone, a stone that others had dared not touch. There was a spark, the sprig bursting into flame in John’s hand as Clint’s bow string snapped, a man screamed, and John was hurled backwards away from the stone against the far opposite wall. Clint also was knocked off his feet, as were the members of the invading horde, and from various places throughout the extended network of mined tunnels, a series of explosions began to erupt as the power released from within that ward prematurely triggered the explosives Coulson’s teams had set.

“What the hell, Coulson!” Clint shouted and he scrambled across the room, yanked John onto his feet, and dragged him into the shaft

The voice reached him from above, not over the com, and Phil shouted back, “It isn’t me!” The trigger in his hand remained un-depressed. There was no reason, as the ground beneath him shook and bucked so violently that items fell from ceiling and shelves and the walls around him visible swayed, for Phil to have taken such an unnecessary risk with his team’s lives, and though he shot a suspicious glance at Stick, the old man’s feet planted to keep himself from falling, he did not believe that the blind man had caused this either. “Out of the building…now,” he barked at those with him, including Stick. This was not the time to linger and wait for answers.

The shaking loosened the metal spikes that held the ladders in place within the shaft, and the two men, the last out of the tunnels, climbing as fast as they could, feared they too were going to be buried alive.

Wishing that someone out there would hear his prayers, John wondered just what he had done.

*

The choking, strangling sound woke Creel mere moments before the shaking began, shaking strong enough to split and buckle the concrete floor upon which they slept, and to rain crumbling dry wall from the ceiling. The boy beside him opened and closed his mouth, his body rigid, his eyes wide and as black as the puddles pooled where the leaking roofing had let rain drops fall. Again there was that glow about him, more red now than the ultraviolet glow he’d exuded previously, filling Creel with wonder and dread. Not knowing how to help the child, who was breathing albeit in shallow, labored breaths, not knowing if he even could, the only thing Creel could do was scoop him up and get him out of the collapsing building.

*

The ground wrenching earthquake was powerful enough to set off car alarms, knock out power transformers, bust pipes and fire hydrants, rip shallow rooted or dead trees from the ground that moored them so that the trunks fell, taking out power lines and destroying vehicles or buildings they crashed upon. Burst gas mains gave birth to fires dotting the city landscape; anything not stable within buildings was thrown to the floor, water sloshed from pools, and pavement and buildings buckled. Havensport was ground zero for the largest city-wide earthquake they had experienced in centuries. The screams of the frightened, the trapped, the injured, filled the night, to be joined by the sirens’ banshee wail.

Even as Logan threw Faith to the floor to lie over her, shielding her from falling debris that he knew would not kill him, the tremors spread up and down the coast, reaching Tigh Ard and beyond to the north, and long past the southern and western fringes of the city. Boats in the eastern harbors strained against their moorings, bumped roughly into the docks, and in some cases were small and light enough to be thrown up upon land.

It had been a long time since Logan had experienced an earthquake, had smelled the familiar stench of released sulfur and ozone and a host of other smells, and he was sure he had never felt one like this. If he had, he did not remember it. Though he had no reason to suspect it was anything but an earthquake, he shouted over the rumble so that Faith would hear him, “This cannot be good!”

Her head covered with her arms, Faith rolled her eyes and waited out the quake with a muttered, “No shit…”

*

“No!”

Matt roared, barreling between the sliding doors that barely opened in time to allow him to pass. He threw people away from their posts so that he could get closer to the monitors, as though it would give him a better position to make out what was happening below. He’d made out Constantine’s voice over the communication system, and Clint’s, and from every chaotic sound that ensued, including the exclamations of the techs monitoring the computers, he knew what was happening below.

The tunnels were being imploded. Every person beneath the ground, Hand, Yakuza, Black Sky or otherwise, was going to be buried alive, crushed to death. Not to mention, the reports bleating out from another computer’s system proved, the number of who even now might be dying above the ground as a result of the wanton underground destruction, were, as far as Matt was concerned, unacceptable casualties in whatever role Barton’s boss, or perhaps even Stick, was waging beneath the city.

Not knowing the why of the decision or who was behind it, what part John, or Stick, had to play in it, Matt could only observe in horror and listen to the chaos of the monitored emergency channels and one man’s barked orders that got other men, his men, to safety.

Men including John Constantine.

No one stopped him as Matt stalked out of the room in search of the hangar. He could not get to the surface, could do nothing to stop the explosions now, but he could prevent any more from dying at someone else’s hand. The hangar was where the returning teams would be arriving. That was where Matt would confront those in control and demand an explanation for the loss of so many innocent lives.

God help the man ultimately responsible.

*

The ground continued to shift beneath his feet as he ran. Free of the building they were no longer in danger of being crushed, but Iwai’s eyes had now closed and the rise and fall of his tiny chest on his otherwise rigid body crew shallower with each breath. Something was wrong with the boy, a sickness or allergy perhaps, but the thought of taking him to a hospital terrified Creel more than the shaking earth did. Going there meant exposure to the ones who had held them, a risk not worth the taking. Better they both die free then return to captivity. Better they avoid the questions that would arise when the medical staff caught a whiff of just how different the child was.

A tree cracked and feel behind Creel, narrowly missing him as he navigated the chaos. The park, it seemed, where others had gathered too, was no safer than the quaking buildings they had left. But here, at least, surrounded by dozens of other Havensport inhabitants, men, women, children and pets, the ones called Hand were likely to leave them alone and everyone was too caught up in their own personal or familial trauma to pay Creel and the boy any mind. They would wait out the shaking here, and then find somewhere safe to go. Somewhere, he though as he cradled the boy against his chest in an effort to hide the peculiarities of his state, where he might be able to restore the child to health.

*

“Mr. Murdock…”

Matt did not ask how the man who spoke knew his name. He assumed the man had learned it from Clint, from John, or from both. Nor did he greet Stick, or John, or Clint, or ask any of the questions churning through his head. Instead he reacted to the burning in his gut and lashed out at the man who, from what he had overheard as the last transport helicopter landed and the hangar hatch door drew closed, erasing the roar of the wind to his ears, was the one in charge here. He swung once, his gloved fist catching the man’s jaw. The unprovoked attack on their director elicited the drawing of guns, the clicks and hisses of weapons primed, but the older man raised his hand in a command to stand down and rubbed his jaw with the other.

“You and I need to talk…” Coulson wiped the blood from his lip but did not otherwise acknowledge the attack.

“You killed…”

“Matty…”

“Come to my office, Mr. Murdock…I’ll tell you everything you need to know…answer your questions…”

“You’ll tell me everything I WANT to know,” Matt emphasized, understanding, as a lawyer, the double speak in the other man’s offer. After all, what Matt wanted to know…and what the other man thought he ‘needed’ to know, might be very different things. He ignored Stick for the time being. He would have words with his mentor later.

“Barton…Hunter…see to Stick…and the cleanup…check on our detainees, monitor the channels and see where we can help down there.” Coulson already knew there was a minor disaster in the making there on the ground. No buildings, to his knowledge, had fallen, but many were damaged, the city’s infrastructure was impaired…with powerlines down, electricity out, gas fires burning here and there, emergency services stretched to the limit. They had heard the radio call for on duty and off duty military units to roll into town to help keep the peace, help the injured and frightened, and to help determine the safety of every building so that those people who were able could return home. His men were battle weary, but also high on the adrenalin rush given when the blasts had begun; they needed to do something to work it off, and Coulson needed them to help make amends for their part in the calamity at hand. “And let me know what the sensors show below.”

Hunter nodded and was the first to leave, but not without a sour glare at the man in the mask. Clint reached out, almost clasping the blind man’s shoulder, but thought better of it. He knew why Murdock was upset.

Odds were, Coulson knew it too.

“Mr. Constantine…join us, please.” Phil left the hangar, expecting to be followed, and John made enough hasty steps to plant himself in between Coulson and Murdock. This reaction, this showdown, was inevitable…but he did not have to let it fall into violence.

“Good to see you up and about,” he murmured beneath his breath. John had not forgiven Matt for what he had done, but he was relieved that the blind man wasn’t dead.

Matt grumbled beneath his breath, right on John’s heels, sorely tempted to shove him out of the way to get to the man in front of them. Whoever he was, however, he deserved the chance to explain himself, but that did not mean he would deserve forgiveness for his decision to endanger innocent civilians. “You have anything to do with me being here?” he hissed as they reached and turned a corner. There were three steps up at the end, leading to a set of doors in a wall with two large paned windows on either side. An office, Matt guessed, possibly even the man’s private quarters. The infirmary, as Matt recalled the layout of the vessel, was directly beneath this room, not, he imagined, by coincidence.

John glanced over his shoulder. “Me? We thought you were dead. It’s been nearly four days since…”

Then he’d been unconscious for less than twelve hours. Matt was in considerably better physical shape then he should have been, he realized, so these people had the medical skill and equipment to allow accelerated healing. Though appreciative, that gift of healing did not make up for the deaths these people had just perpetrated.

“Please…have a seat.” Phil circled behind the desk, and sank into his chair. He wanted a shower, he wanted a meal, a drink, and a good night’s sleep, but so long as there might be something his team could do to help the city his choices had helped damaged, the team weren’t going anywhere. Personal luxuries such as food and comfort would have to wait; sitting down for a few moments of rest would have to suffice.

Though John accepted the offered chair, the un-warding efforts and the resulting blast of power as the spirit burst free sapping him of enough energy that he had no desire to stand any longer than he had to, Matt chose to stand, the impulse to fight so hardwired into his body that he could not relax in this moment even if he wanted to.

“Phil Coulson.”

“You know who I…”

“We’ve been watching you…all of you.” Coulson glanced at John and then looked back. The exorcist had not been on the Unit’s radar, but that had changed now. John Constantine was in the system now.

“Why? Who are you?”

Coulson’s first response was almost SHIELD, the response built into his genetic coding; but SHIELD did not exist, was not part of this world, and what he had begun to create with this group was something much different, in spite of its similarities.

“The director of IHAC…Inhumans Against Corruption…” He gave a sideways smirk and shrugged. “I know…could be better…but it was the first thing we came up with that all of us could agree upon…”

“Inhumans?” The word tasted and sounded bitter upon Matt’s tongue.

“People like us…more than human…different…like your friend Logan…like yourself…”

“A childhood accident does not make me less than…”

“Not less than…more than…”

“You have to admit you’re not exactly normal,” John interjected with a chuckle.

Matt scowled but had to agree that assessment was correct. There weren’t many people like him…only Stick as far as he knew, and Stick was as far from ‘normal’ in his own ways as Logan was.

“So you fight corruption,” Matt growled, “by killing it? Are you military?”

“Only when there are no other options.” Phil put his elbows upon the table and leaned forward. He left the question of military involvement unanswered. The less anyone knew about their affiliations, or lack of them, the safer they all were.

“You’re going to tell me killing everyone down there…”

“That thing was alive, Matt…the stone…or something in it. It had been there for centuries…and it was dying. The more they chipped away…the longer it was held there…and if they’d tapped into that…hooked Black Sky into it…they’d be unstoppable,” John interrupted. “All the power of the ley lines fed into that spot, into that thing…all the power of the earth would have been at Black Sky’s disposal…”

Matt did not know what ley lines were. He did not know how that stone could have been alive, even though he remembered having a very clear impression that there was an ancient, powerful life force trapped in that last cavern that had nothing to do with the Hand.

“Are you saying that setting it free…?” John had to have set it free; whatever it was, Matt could not fathom, could not accept, the possibility that John might have destroyed some other ancient life-force, even to keep it out of the Hand’s control.

Coulson nodded. “There was no choice. We were assured it was not dangerous on its own, so leaving it the way it was…it was like leaving an elephant chained in captivity. It was my decision to set the charges, to make the material in those tunnels in accessible. We tried to flush everyone out…draw them out to safety…many chose to fight and die. We did what we could. Whatever that metal is, it is stronger than anything we’ve catalogued to date. Letting the Yakuza get their hands on it…”

“Their Hands…get it…” John couldn’t hold back the snicker. He was tired and sorely in need of a cigarette and a drink.

Matt ignored the poor attempt at humor. “And the boy…was he there?”

Sighing Coulson replied, “We don’t know. We don’t think so…but our sensors would not penetrate below the subway tunnels, due to this unknown metal. Truth is, we don’t know who…or what…was down there, though given what we do know, what Stick was able to tell us, our assumption was that the Hand was quartering there…”

“I wouldn’t believe everything Stick says.”

“Perhaps not…but his was the only intel we had on those tunnels…other than Clint’s, yours, and John’s…”

“You could have waited for me to wake…”

“What could you have added?”

Matt took a breath and contemplated what little he had learned when he had been in there. The nature of the metal…the myriad of heartbeats and voices he had detected in the distance that announced others being there but in no way hinted at how many members of The Hand might have been there as well. There would not have been much Matt could have added; if Stick had been captive there for any significant length of time, he would have known much more than Matt.

But Matt still wasn’t prone to trust every word his mentor uttered. Stick had let him down before and undoubtedly had his own agenda. Something to do with that war he had hinted at when Matt had been only a child.

When Matt did not reply, Coulson continued, “We have apprehended and secured a number of Hand operatives, but none will speak thus far to either confirm or deny if Black Sky was there or not. Based on the only Hand activity we have seen in Havensport, it is our impression that they are still hunting for him as we are, so our best guess is no…he wasn’t there…”

“Your best guess? You might have killed a child with your best guess…not to mention any children above…”

“As I was saying, Mr. Murdock, the charges were set but we did not detonate them…”

“Seems when I removed the wards that bound…whatever was there…” John explained with a shrugged. “Either the force of releasing that…thing…set off the charges accidentally, or else it set them off intentionally. Not like I can sit down with it, share a drink, and ask it twenty questions. It’s not like I let that thing go KNOWING it was dangerous. Far as I could tell, it was benevolent.”

Matt knew where that barb was aimed but had no arguments he could give beyond the sanctity of the child’s life to explain why he had voided John’s spell. No matter what else that boy was, he was a child and deserved the chance to live, to be a child. How could he then argue that the life John had released, deserved anything less than the same chance to live? If lives were lost in the process…either accidentally or intentionally at that creature’s doing, where was the difference should Black Sky do the same? Did that make John complicit in the deaths of those below and above the ground? Coulson might have ordered the charges put in place…at Stick’s urging no doubt…but was he responsible for the premature detonation? And who was to say that this other life, feeding on decades, centuries, an eternity of whatever energy flowed through those ley lines John spoke of, couldn’t have destroyed the tunnels without the charges, had chosen to do so in retaliation for those who had been keeping it hostage…hurting it through their mining?

Who, Matt mused, the anger sapped from his argument now, was to say where the true blame lay.

“Believe me,” Coulson continued in a softer, gentler tone, “if I could round up all of the Hand and lock them away, I would…but it’s simply not feasible. We both know that normal law enforcement efforts are not capable of dealing with them…”

“And if you’re honest with yourself, you’d know that they’re too damned brainwashed and indoctrinated to ever change their minds to be ‘good’.” For John, that was the deciding factor. He knew evil when he saw it. He felt sure he knew when a manifestation of evil had reached the point of no return. The Hand weren’t evil by accident. They were evil by choice in the service of a power that most mortals could never reverse.

“We’re studying the ones we have…their psychology…their physiology…what it is that makes some of them near impossible to kill…how we might be able to reverse any of it…help them rather than harm them…but for now, this is the best we can do to keep the majority safe…”

“Death is never the best we can do.” Tone icy, Matt retreated half a step to put a little more distance between him and the man on the other side of the desk. It prevented him from easily doing something his balled fists were still aching to do. “So…what now? Where is Logan? Faith?”

“Both are fine as far as we know. Business as usual as far as we’ve been able to tell. We haven’t interfered with them beyond the initial rescue. You’re free to do as you please; my team help with the rescue and recovery here as much as we are able…without revealing ourselves…but our work here is mostly done. Once we confirm that Black Sky is no longer a threat…”

“That he’s dead…?”

“Or that he’s no longer in the area,” Phil added, preferring anything over killing a child, “we’ll be on our way.”

“Don’t let me stop you from going. We can handle things here on our own.” He had not asked for outside interference and was confident in his ability to thwart this treat without a small army to back him up.

Again Phil sighed. “I’m sure you can.” He saw no reason to belabor the obvious, that they obviously had not been ‘handling things’ on their own when Coulson’s team had shown up. “I don’t suppose this is a good time to invite you to join the team?” His lips curled with a touch of amusement at Matt’s expression. “You’ll be welcome…should you choose to join us…any of you. We can use people with your skills…”

“I don’t think we’d work so well together.” Matt could respect the man’s mission, might even be able to grow to like Coulson over all, but he did not envision them ever becoming drinking buddies.

“You never know…you might find we’re not that different…”

Matt snorted. “I doubt that. Look…I…thank you for putting me back together…but I need to get back down there.” There were injured people to help, Black Sky to find…Creel…and the city needed to be mopped clean of whatever remained of the Hand and the Yakuza within it. Matt was not going to be able to rest until that was done. Even for men immortal, how likely was it that those buried beneath the earth would someday surface? And he had to find Logan and Faith, verify that what Coulson said about their welfare was accurate.

“Of course. We’ll send you down with the next detachment.” If Coulson was disappointed with his failure to recruit the Devil, he did not show it. “Mr. Constantine?”

“I’m not a team player…nasty piece of work, really. You wouldn’t want me on your team…any more than I’d want to be there. But…” He got to his feet to join Murdock, forgetting, for the moment at least, that he was still angry with the man for ruining the spell he had worked so hard to craft. “If there’s anything I can ever do…”

He let the sentence hang, and Coulson’s nod was the acceptance of the offer, the closest they would get to any sort of agreement between them.

Matt did not care what agreement they made. His mind, his focus, was elsewhere, was on saving lives, not taking them. Whatever this IHAC was, Coulson could have them. Matt Murdock had his own agenda, and blowing up cities was not part of it.


	30. 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the readers!  
> Stay tuned for part 2...at some point

Unlike many on Coulson’s team, Lance Hunter was not ‘special’. He and Clint shared a higher than average martial arts skill, and put a gun in his hand and Hunter could hit almost anything. But he was no gymnast, no trick shot, and possessed no inhuman skills or abilities; like about a dozen others on the four dozen man, and woman, team, Hunter was no more than a clone, discarded by his owners when the novelty of ownership wore off and they realized he was something more than a dog to perform tricks for guests. Too hard to control, impossible to ‘train’ without extreme measures they didn’t want to undertake. Thankfully, they hadn’t dumped him at the ‘pound’ but rather let him drive away on a stolen bike without interest in looking for him.

Hunter hadn’t objected to being abandoned; it wasn’t like he needed others to take care of him. He had many useable skills, most notably the ability to go undercover and blend in just about anywhere he chose, and a to survival. But meeting Coulson, being invited to put those skills to good use, to return to the more ‘mercenary’ life to which he’d been accustomed in canon, had been a welcome change. He needed more than survival. He needed a purpose, and Phil Coulson had given it to him.

That it gave him an opportunity to fight oppression, criminal elements, and help others like himself was a bonus. He’d hit it off with Clint at once, and along with Coulson, they formed the backbone of IHAC. Hunter figured the fact that he and Clint were ‘normal’ was the primary reason Coulson had brought him aboard. Coulson didn’t have any superpowers either…unless one counted being a badass a superpower. As more and more ‘special’ recruits were drawn in, Hunter figured Coulson appreciated having ‘normal’ about him more and more.

The majority of the time, Hunter was fine with ‘normal’.

In moments such as now, however, as he helped cinch the ropes to be used to rescue a girl who had fallen into a sinkhole opened in the no longer shaking, cracking earth, Hunter wished he had just one special skill…any one would do…that might make his efforts to save others even a tiny bit easier. He had seen a lot of ‘special’ in his months at Coulson’s side, on paper and with his own eyes, and even a little bit of any one of those would have suited Hunter fine.

As part of Coulson’s core team, Hunter knew the files; whenever they travelled to a new territory with known ‘specials’ in it, Hunter, Clint, and a handful of others were briefed on every known detail about those living nearby who they might be able to recruit. Friends, family, skills…canon background that might be used in IHAC’s favor as a recruiting tool or at least a tool to avoid getting on the individuals bad side. Coming to Havensport had been no different, although this had been more than a recruiting stop.

It was the knowledge of the locals that enabled him to recognize the broad-shouldered man with the peculiar haircut and dark haired beauty beside him who arrived on the scene and put their backs into the rescue effort for the at-risk child. The woman dropped down into the hole where the child was, unafraid of being swallowed by the earth, caught the girl in her arms, and when the harness the child had rejected before was again lowered to draw them up, the woman carried the hysterical girl back to her equally hysterical mother.

“Nice work…” Hunter rarely missed the chance to hit on a pretty woman, and he was already imagining what it would be like to recruit her, to work with her day after day.

“Thanks,” Faith muttered, swiping at the dirt on her black pants but quickly giving up on any effort to look clean. She was only going to wear more dirt and grime before this night was over. She wanted to call Jessie, see how she was…how Tigh Ard had faired, but it appeared that cell service through the area was out and she suspected more than a few roads were closed in and out of town. Until the damage was assessed and the tone of public panic subsided, it was wisest to stay off the streets.

Logan didn’t recognize the man, but the black paramilitary gear, his close-cropped hair and his physical bearing suggested that he had been, or still was, part of one of the military units swarming throughout the city contributing to the search and rescue efforts. He looked the man up and down, but otherwise ignored what seemed like an effort to hit on the Slayer. Instead, the Wolverine scanned the crowd, the shadows of nearby buildings, in search of whatever was making the hair at the nape of his neck stand on end. The air was filled with the mix of natural gas from broken lines, spilled petroleum, and the odor of sulphur that was sometimes noticeable in the vicinity of the regions hot-springs. There was also the thick blanket of smoke billowing over the city from a variety of fires and stench of fear rolling off of the people around him were only inhibiting his sense of smell more, so what it was he was sensing was protected from complete detection. But that other scent was there, and the unknown nature only meant that it was more dangerous than it should have been.

“We’ve gotta go,” he grunted, his hand closing around Faith’s arm just above her elbow. Flirting with handsome men was in Faith’s nature but this was not the time. The problem was, Logan did not know where he wanted to go, only that they could not stand here, exposed on the fringes of the terrified crowd.

“Go where?” Hunter had only just met them and he fancied getting to know the Slayer better. At the moment there did not seem anywhere pressing anyone needed to be, except safe from harm. It occurred to him that the pair probably had not heard the good news yet. “Hey…Murdock’s…”

A glimpse of another familiar face through the crowd, a target that Coulson had added to their Apprehend List when they had learned the nature of what they were dealing with in Havensport, cut Hunter’s news short. “Get down,” he yelped, yanking Faith to her knees by one arm, thus wrenching the other out of Logan’s grasp. Two shots fired through the crowd above Hunter and Faith’s head, one catching Logan in the shoulder, the other whistling past him as he spun and striking an elderly man behind where Hunter on the side of the neck. If he had not pulled Faith out of the way, she would have been hit…but now an innocent man had taken the damage instead. Logan’s head turned the other way in that spin and caught the barest of glimpses of someone he’d not thought he’d see again.

He hadn’t believed she’d up and leave Havensport just because she’d impaled him to a wall. She would have known he was still alive; she had only left him there to escape, to pursue Black Sky herself, something she had probably continued to do every day since. Maybe, Logan thought with bitter briefness, he should have been hunting her instead.

If she was here now, perhaps, Logan realized as he began to run after her, the boy and his bodyguard were nearby.

“Wait…” Again Hunter caught Faith’s arm, this time preventing her from charging after Logan. She growled at him but he ignored the sound. “Take this.” He yanked one of his guns from its holster and thrust it into her hand. “You’re going to need this…”

Without knowing what Logan was chasing, but assuming it was Black Sky, she at first tried to refuse, to push the gun back at Hunter. “That’s not going to…”

“There’s enough tranq in there to drop a hippo,” Hunter assured her. “It will work on anyone.” It was his understanding that the formula had been developed specifically to knock out the majority of Inhumans they were likely to encounter in the field. Ones like Creel, of course, would be more difficult, and because he had no idea, none of them did, exactly what Black Sky was, or did, or was capable of, they could only hope the tranquilizer would work on it too.

Faith nodded, accepting the gun then and running after Logan as soon as the handsome stranger released her to help the bleeding old man beside him. A tranquilizer might not be as effective as John’s Killing Stone, but she had to believe that it would be more effective than fists and feet against whatever they were about to hunt down.

*

The helicopter had dropped him on a flat rooftop of a warehouse in the eastern side of the city, a rooftop with access to the docks and streets below. Coulson’s team had orders elsewhere, and Matt preferred to work alone. Working with a team who operated, by necessity perhaps, on a ‘shoot first ask questions later’ motto, was not a path Matt wanted to go down, and even if they were all, at the moment, on a rescue mission for those in need of help in the earthquake’s aftermath, Matt felt he would do better without them.

He wanted to seek out whatever remained of The Hand. He wanted to know if his mission here was over. It would not explain why he had been sent here, what his purpose was supposed to have been, but it would make him feel better about the confusion of his life.

Once the chopping roar of the blades withdrew, clearing his ears of their overpowering volume, and the city air was allowed to rush into the vacuum their spinning had left behind, Matt’s senses were bombarded by the chaos of a city under siege by nature. Sirens, the rumble of rescue equipment, emergency crews barking orders to each other and the public they were trying to serve, the horrified shouts and crying of the injured, the trapped, the frightened. Too much noise, too many direction to be pulled in, too many in need of help that the emergency personnel and concerned neighbors were managing to take care, too many to use his particular set of skills to assist. But there was a familiar crash of breaking glass not far from where he stood, looters taking advantage of the chaos to make off with whatever these warehouses contained, just the sort of thing Daredevil was use to taking care of. The police would never get there in time, but Matt knew he could do it without even breaking a sweat.

At the edge of the rooftop, however, seconds before leaping to the lower roof of the nearest building, Matt froze, teetering on the precipice, as a new sound crashed against his eardrums. The sounds of a single man fighting for his life, fighting for the life of the small struggling heart in his care, on the deck of one of the moored cargo ships, one empty of life and freight, more rust-eaten then safe for a sea voyage, but an ideal place for man and child to hide.

Except when it came to hiding from The Hand. No one was safe from them.

Creel.

The attackers, The Hand Matt was sure, seemed unable to damage or bring down their opponent, but the odds of them overpowering him long enough to take Black Sky…their true objective…grew higher with each blow that landed. Maybe Creel could beat them, could fight them off, but not while he had the boy clutched to his chest in one arm, a burden that affected his balance and left him only able to fight, or defend himself, with the other arm, an unfair fight that he was gradually losing.

Course altered, Matt turned on the ledge, perfectly balanced, and ran along the rooftops, leaping from one to the other, each twist in the air allowing him to land upon his feet, each maneuver proving again that whatever else Coulson and his team had done, they had healed every one of Matt’s injuries. Maybe he would thank them later.

Maybe he would let the matter go and get on with his life, wherever that took him.

*

“What’s the rush?”

Logan’s spinning with his tight grip around the woman’s arm, when he finally caught up with her at the end of a garbage strewn alley, whipped her off her feet, but as he hurled her against the side of nearby parked car, her needle-like claws raked across his chest, his face, ripping fabric and flesh and eliciting a growl from Logan as he let her go.

“That’s my new jacket.”

The jacket did not really matter, he could get another one, and the cuts upon his body would heal, but the need to keep Faith out of Deathstrike’s line of attack was making this a more challenging battle. Knowing he wasn’t a runner, his bulk and heavy bones slowing him down, knowing she would be quicker on her feet, he was surprised to have caught up with her at the alley’s end at all. In the distance, somewhere beyond the warehouses, somewhere on the loading docks that he had not realized were so close, there was fighting, objects falling, one man’s war cries, the impact of metal upon metal, and boots scrambling across the slippery surface of a ship’s deck.

Maybe she was leading him there…not that she needed safety in numbers. Or maybe she had slowed, to hold the line here where he could not see what was happening upon that ship. Either way, if it was important enough to her to protect it, or to keep him away from it, it was worth investigating.

“The ship!”

Faith heard the fight too, but she was torn between helping Logan and investigating. This woman with the overdone manicure wouldn’t kill the Wolverine, but she sure as hell was going to mess up that pretty face if someone did not do something to put a stop to the fight and there was no one else around to try.

She could do that. She had the tranquilizer gun.

But quarters were too close here between the alley and the parked cars, and the melee of muscles and claws wasn’t going to give Faith an easy shot. She was not use to guns, had never used them, never practiced with them…but she could use a bow, had a good eye for the aim. All she would need would be one good, easy shot.

She wasn’t running, wasn’t leaving him to the fight, and Logan growled his frustration as he extricated himself with a boot to Deathstrike’s face from the broken car windshield where he had been thrown. His roll off the hood gave him the briefest glimpse of the gun in Faith’s hand.

In one fluid movement, Deathstrike leapt onto the now crushed hood of the car, avoiding Logan’s swinging fist, and launched herself at the Wolverine’s companion, not seeing the gun either.

Faith chose that moment to run.

Where in the hell, Logan was still wondering as he threw himself between the women, had the Slayer gotten a gun?

*

Creel had not detected the new arrival, but the Devil’s sudden appearance between him and the nine assassins he faced was a startling development that he did not appreciate. That Devil and his friends…his minions…had tried to kill Iwai, and the possibility that he was here to finish that job was high enough that Creel rammed his steel fist hard into the Devil’s ribcage. It was enough of an opening, as Daredevil rolled across the slippery rusty deck, gasping in pain, to leave Creel’s blind side open. One of the assassin’s grabbed the boy’s dangling arms and pulled.

The sudden emptiness in his arms cut Creel deeper than any blade could have, but now his focus was divided between two enemies, filling him with frustration. He lunged at the man attempting to retreat backwards with the child in his arms, oblivious to the movement of the Devil on the deck behind him.

Matt scrambled to his feet, avoiding the sharp-ended pole that one of the assassins thought to drive through his chest; by grabbing the pole he as able to yank the man off his feet and fling him…into the path of the one retreating with the boy. It caused the kidnapper to stumble, hindering his escape just enough for Creel to tackle him. They landed with the child between their bodies and a knife blade scraping without damage against the Creel’s thick iron skin.

It was hearing the impact of metal against metal, a scraping, scratching sound like nails upon a chalkboard, realizing that Creel was more than he seemed, that he could take care of himself, and the boy, that kept Matt focused on the remaining six assassins. Their weapons gave their positions away, a disadvantage against the Devil, they knew, but the only hope they had of slowing Creel and to take Black Sky. Between the cut of blades and chains and poles through the air and the unmistakable sound of their feathery footfalls in the water upon the open deck, Matt had targets he could fight.

Targets he could defeat.

Creel, he knew, would protect the boy. It seemed the only thing the man was interested in doing, and Matt was okay with that for as long as it took to end the fight.

*

Deathstrike plowed directly into Logan’s chest, imbedding claws there and knocking him on his butt on the pavement so that she could easily roll over him, withdraw her claws, and continue to run after Faith. He cracked his neck as he rose and followed, ignoring the gushing punctures across his torso that made him cough and splutter as blood seeped into his lungs. Faith could run, Logan had seen that often enough, but could she outrun this opponent?

Would Deathstrike’s adamantium skeleton slow her just enough to keep Faith out of range of the claws?

They burst into the open area of this particular mooring dock, where trucks picked up and delivered containers destined for transport upon one of the ships. They were quite a distance from the only ship moored here, a ship that looked abandoned at first glance, but there was no mistaking the red suited figure that spun through the air landing blows with precision against an undetermined number of opponents.

Wasn’t Murdock dead?

Obviously not, Logan chided himself as he pushed himself to run faster. Faith was running out of dock; unless she chose to go for a swim, she was going to come up against those deadly claws too soon.

Faith knew it too, but believed that there was still enough distance between them to give her time to act, to draw the gun and aim at the other woman’s chest.

*

Creel stood over the child’s crumpled body, the ex-boxer landing punch after punch into the bodies of the ninjas who were double-timing him. He didn’t see the rigid body between his feet go limp, did not notice the balling of tiny fists, the opening of normally black eyes now shining a brilliant sky blue, did not notice the swirl of voluminous black clouds forming into thick billows, accumulating, above the ship.

Matt could not see them, but he could smell the change in the air, the sudden heaviness of rain in the air, the crackle and sizzle of ozone as tiny jagged fingers of light scratched through the clouds, splitting them open with a rumble that shook the metal vessel beneath his feet and dumped heavy, pelting raindrops upon them. The sound of the rain upon his helmet was distracting, almost deafening, but he remained focused on sounds further away from his ears, on the fabric of his opponents’ and by paring down his hearing, it allowed him to more easily judge where they were, where their movements were taking them. Three lay unconscious upon the deck, their bodies pushed or thrown aside out of the combat arena, and with two upon Creel, Matt kept the remaining four occupied and away from the boy.

He would take them down one by one until there were no more standing and leave them there for the police to find. He would protect the child’s life…barely believing that he was fighting side by side with his father’s final opponent to do it. How could this possibly be the same man?

*

The sudden pelting rainstorm stung her eyes, smarted against her skin. She blinked the pain and the water away, unable to wipe her hair from her face with both hands on the gun. Three steps. Six. The five adamantium spikes at the end of Deathstrike’s extended arm was raised to strike, to kill. The swing. The flash and crack of a nearby lightning strike that erased her vision, her hearing. The bite of razors across her bare arm and the kick of the gun that threw her backwards from the dock into the cold, churning sea.

“FAITH!”

*

The flash of lightning itself did not affect his vision, as he could not see it, but the heat of it, the ripping of the air was enough to announce the proximity of the strike, as was the sudden screams of the four assassins who still remained in the fight. The air smelled of burning flesh, but Matt barely registered that over the distant cry of Faith’s name punctuated by a single gunshot. His face snapped towards the sounds, but he detected only one person running across the loading dock, one who dove into the water without hesitation. Logan. He knew the voice, distorted as it was by the rain, the thunderclap, and the sizzle of the burning bodies around him. Not far from where the mutant had been, the returning chop-chop of rotor blades churned the night, emptying a dozen men in military gear who moved as a group and scooped up a fallen body from the dock’s edge.

Matt could taste the addition of blood in the air, hear the distinctive grinding of metal bones. Metal bones…but not Logan.

Distracted as he was, he missed the charge until it was too late to avoid the impact of Creel’s body into his.

“Leave us alone!” Creel roared as he scooped Matt up from the deck, hands around Matt’s throat, squeezing with enough strength in his metal skin to restrict the flow of air into his lungs. With the unnatural defens of his skin, Matt could not punch his way out of this predicament, and so gripped Creel’s head between his hands with the intent of jabbing thumbs into the man’s eyes.

He wagered Creel would drop him rather than risk going blind.

*

It was a good thing she could swim, Faith mused as she sank deeper into the dark water. Being low tide, the water was not as deep here as it normally was, though deep enough to give the cargo ship room enough not to beach. But at this time of year it was still was too cold, and the stinging pain of salt in the gouges on her arm only added to the numbing of her movements as she struggled back towards the surface. Buffeted sideways as something landed in the water nearby, it was the familiar arm about her waist that saved her, pulling her into the open air where she could spit sea water from her mouth and gulp down the air that had been robbed of her by that surprising fall from the dock. She lifted her head, intending to thank him once she found her voice, but rather than Logan’s face she was greeted with another man’s face, the archer who had rescued them before, leaning over the cement edge, reaching towards her with one arm.

“Take my hand.”

Hands around her waist, Logan lifted her up.

*

Stop. He is here to help.

Matt heard the voice in his head, not with his ears, a voice the same though now weighted with an unnatural echo, as if it was two voices speaking in unison, one young and bright, one ancient and heavy with history and wisdom.

It might have been that voice, if Creel heard it as well, or it might have been the arrival of the helicopter…possibly the same one that had brought Matt down earlier…that caused the bald man to release his grip and drop Matt to the deck. Matt landed on one knee, a reflexive crouch that would allow him to act quickly should the fight continue. But judging by the way the small figure now at Creel’s side had burrowed his hand into Creel’s, an action that reversed the metallic quality of Creel’s skin and made it once again the softness of flesh to the man’s seeming surprise, Matt knew this fight was over.

Creel stared at the boy who had forced the change in his body when no one had ever been able to do that before, and closed his fist around the smaller hand. The boy’s eyes still burned blue, and though he otherwise looked no different, to Creel, who perhaps knew him best, he was completely different. The protection he needed now was no longer the same, and Creel did not know if he could provide the boy what he needed. The possibility of being no longer useful, being without purpose, made him angry.

A horde of heavy boots surged up the gangplank, black clad men with machine guns drawn, aimed at man and boy who had been designated a threat by the intel they had first been given upon their arrival in Havensport. With no countermands to those order, they would shoot, they would kill, with the slightest provocation. Creel growled and yanked the boy behind him, believing his body would protect him, but it was Matt’s sudden step up into the line of fire that made the officer in charge raise his hand in a gesture to his team to lower their weapons. He was not going to risk another man’s life, but unlike the men behind him, he had no intention of killing the child either.

“Barton…let them go…”

“I can’t do that…you know I can’t.”

“They’re no threat to you.” There was an undeniable force of power in the boy now, something Matt had felt in the second cavern…that same something that John Constantine had attempted to release from the wards that bound it there. It appeared that John’s efforts had succeeded…and that whatever had lived there now dwelt alongside the kami in the host known as Black Sky. Maybe this was what the Hand had intended all along. Maybe it was an expected side effect. Maybe the weapon The Hand had been seeking was now real and a threat to the world. But Matt felt no menace in the boy, only something both naïve and wise, innocent and experienced, that to Matt’s way of thinking deserved as much of an opportunity to live as any of them did.

“They’re no threat to you…to anyone…”

“Until he learns to harness his power…channel it…” Clint looked at the charred bodies around them, wondering if The Hand could be resurrected from this state…and if the child had targeted them, meant to kill them. That localized storm, already dissipated to reveal the clear sky once more, had been the boy’s doing; Clint knew it without having seen it happen. The lightning that had struck and killed those men had been no accident…or else had been a frighteningly deadly accident of exacting precision. “We can train him…”

“And turn him into a freak,” snarled Creel, “into a weapon?” Technically, the boy was perhaps both, but it was not the sort of future he had envisioned for his ward when he’d dared to think about the future at all over the past several weeks.

“Not a weapon,” Clint promised. He squatted down to be at eye level with the child who was trying to emerge from behind Creel but who the bald man continued to push him back with one large hand. “What he does with his…gifts…is up to him. We can help…provide him somewhere safe to grow up…to learn…where no one can hurt him and he can’t accidentally hurt anyone else.”

Anyone, that was, except the people who cared for him. It was a dangerous risk Coulson was taking, but it could, potentially, be one well worth the taking.

Logan was tromping up the blank now, dripping wet, his hair disheveled and his clothes askew from his unexpected swim. He had left Faith in the care of a medic at the second helicopter; the first had taken Deathstrike away, her body hopefully sedated long enough for the extraction team to get her into confinement. He could have stayed with her, but he wanted to see that Murdock was alive with his own eyes. They had stepped into this fray together…more or less…and he needed to know Murdock was okay. The boy looked at Logan, then beyond him at the man standing with hands locked before him as he waited at the helicopter, refusing to interfere; Iwai cocked his head if seeing something unexpected, and then tugged at Creel’s arm.

We should go with them…

The men gathered around Clint heard the voice too, though each knew at once that it was no spoken voice but rather the echo of words in their heads. A few reacted with pain, wincing and grimacing, a few shook their heads as if trying to be rid of an annoying buzz or the ringing of their ears. Several took a single step backwards as if hoping to escape.

“We?” Clint asked.

Creel growled again. “We can’t trust them…”

Yes. We can.

The boy freed himself from Creel’s protection and stepped around the dead bodies on the deck without obvious distaste or even visible notice of their condition…as if he either did not realize he had caused these deaths or did not care for the destruction he had inflicted. As if death meant nothing to him. It was a wonder, Clint mused as the child seemed to lock gazes with Coulson, that everyone on the ship’s deck, Creel and Murdock included, hadn’t been electrocuted or fried just the same.

What did the boy see in Coulson, Clint wondered? Some shadow from a past he must surely have been too young to recall? He did not know what the child’s life had been, but there seemed something that drew him to the older man, or intrigued him enough that he was willing to take the step towards trust.

After a minute of wrestling with his conscience, with his own fears of trading one form of imprisonment for another, Creel joined the boy at the ship’s rail, both hands on his small shoulders, standing sideways to the men with guns but ready to fight again if he must. “He does not go alone. Wherever he goes, I go.” If these people betrayed them, Creel would kill them all.

Matt growled too. “You’re not warping him into…”

“We’re not warping anyone…I swear it…” A father himself, at least in canon, Clint would do everything in his power to make sure that the boy had the very best of everything he could provide. No one was hurting a child on his watch, and it was only Matt sensing that, hearing the honesty in Clint’s promise, that made him willing to step down. For all his power, Iwai was a child and needed a child’s guidance.

“Well?” barked Creel, impatiently waiting for an agreement. If he didn’t get it, he was contemplating scooping the boy up and jumping over the side of the ship.

Clint opened his mouth, glanced at Coulson, and when the distant man nodded once, whether he heard Creel’s condition or not, Clint nodded too. “Of course…both of you.”

He motioned for the rest of his team to gather the bodies, the dead ones and the unconscious ones upon the deck, as he followed first Logan, then Creel and Iwai, down the ramp towards the helicopter. Matt came last, body still on alert in case a fight broke out or Coulson’s men somehow reneged on Barton’s promise to keep the boy safe. With Logan and Creel on his side, the guns might not be much of a threat. And though he had not given it active consideration, the burnt bodies on the deck of the ship were compelling evidence that the boy would see to his own protection if he felt the need.

Sensing Faith sitting on floor of the helicopter, legs dangling over the edge with a thermal blanket around her cold wet shoulders, helped Matt relax. John had been delivered home, per his request, and Stick, to Matt’s knowledge, was still on Coulson’s mothership for reasons only Stick knew. Faith was okay, Logan was okay. Every one of them lived and so long as Coulson supported Barton’s promise and protected the boy, Matt couldn’t have asked for a better outcome.

At the helicopter, Iwai again pulled away from Creel, this time to stand in front of Matt and stare up at him without touching him. The blue in his eyes had faded back into black and the tone of his voice, when he spoke had lost all but the faintest trace of the earlier noted duality. The clothes he wore, stolen from someone’s laundry line, were too big for his skinny frame and his feet were bare but he seemed neither uncomfortable or cold. It was as if all the external stimuli of the world did not matter to him, as if he had been well trained by the monks who had reared him to ignore such things. For all of the complexities Matt could feel surrounding the child, he was tempted to touch him, to make certain he was real. He did not.

You helped.

Matt remembered that first plea, the one that had dragged him further down this path than he had intended. He still did not know if the ones who had sent him here had wanted him to stop this or had wanted him to die trying. Having ditched the cell phone, stayed off the computer, and moved out of his original hotel room, he had no idea if anyone was looking for him or not. He no longer cared. How much Matt had helped, whether Creel would have gotten Iwai safely away without Matt’s help, he could not say, but he nodded. “I promised.”

Iwai smiled. Matt could not see it, but he could feel the warmth in the boy’s countenance. It made him smile in return.

You did. Thank you, Mr. Murdock.

Few heads turned at the exchange, as if they did not hear it, as if the boy was confining his dialogue to him alone. Or not, as Matt sensed the surge in Creel’s blood pressure, his heartrate, as he turned abruptly so that they faced one another.

Murdock and Creel. Of course. How could he have been so blind as to have missed that?

Iwai scrambled into the helicopter onto Creel’s lap, followed by Coulson and Clint. Faith turned her legs so that she was nestled inside so that the door could close. The promise of warmth, medical treatment, and getting that agent’s gun back to him…to whatever that might lead to, was enough to persuade her to go on a little side excursion. If she went home like this now, bloody, bruised, and wet, Jessie was going to have a fit. A few more hours wouldn’t hurt anything, so long as Jessie was unharmed in the quake.

Coulson had promised Faith she could call the other woman from his ship. It was another reason to see what the man had to offer.

“We’ll get a real match one day,” the bald man said before Clint closed the helicopter door. “Fair fight. You and me, kid…we’ll do it right…just like me and your old man…”

Matt’s lips curled into a slight smile. “I’d like that.” In a fair fight, Matt was confident he could win. Somewhere out there, he was sure his father would like that too.

The chopper lifted into the air, leaving Matt and Logan alone on the loading platform save for the men swarming the ship’s deck, cleaning away all evidence of the fight, preparing bodies and prisoners for transport on the next helicopter. By the time they were through, there would be nothing for the police to find, no one for them to arrest. Maybe it was better that way, kept The Hand and the Havensport PD as far apart as possible.

He wondered what had become of those already taken into police custody.

In the background, behind the nearness of the sea slapping concrete and metal and the groaning of the ship’s hull, the sirens continued to split the night, masking the dwindling screams and cries. By daybreak, life would begin to swing back into a normal rhythm, repairs and healing of the city’s soul the only trace that would remain of the night’s terror, with few ever knowing the truth behind it. With very few ever knowing how truly bad things could have been

“Think we got them all?” Logan patted his jacket pocket, instinctively looking for a cigar but only drawing out a soggy stick of tobacco. He scowled and dropped it on the ground, grinding it there beneath the toe of his boot. With a peculiar sense of déjà vu, he realized that they were more or less back where they had started. A few berths down, a stone’s throw from where they currently stood, was where Logan had found the unconscious lawyer face down in the muck.

“I don’t know. Maybe. The woman…?”

“I got her…or rather…Faith did.” It felt a little awkward to admit that the Slayer had been the one to take down Deathstrike, but Logan gave the credit where it was due. Sooner or later, he imagined he would run into Yuriko again. Fate seemed determined to throw them together over and over. But for now, she wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone where she was going and Faith would have one hell of a story to tell…or not. “Still don’t think she was the one running things…”

“Probably not.” But Matt guessed that, whoever had been running things in Havensport was either buried in the rubble or on their way far away by now. And whomever was the real directing force behind the Hand, they had never been in Havensport. That directing force would seek out another Black Sky…or strive to steal this one from Coulson’s team, just as they would seek out another ley line mineral deposit, another source of power, another weapon to forward their plans. Maybe that was where Stick was going now, to find that director, or seek out other deposits, other potential Black Skys. It might have been good to have a chance to speak to his mentor further…learn what he knew about The Hand, about Black Sky…about why Matt had been sent here…but Stick wasn’t one for small talk and even if he knew the answers to Matt’s questions, probably would have refused the information so that Matt could find it on his own. Sooner or later, they would have butted heads at an infuriating impasse once again and they would have parted on sour terms again.

It was undoubtedly better this way.

“We’ll know soon enough, I imagine,” he continued. A few more days and nights of scouring the city and he should be able to tell whether the Hand had vacated Havensport, whether it was safe enough to leave the residents to their own devices once more.

“I need to get out of these clothes.” Logan wrung the water from the front of his shirt. “And I need a good strong drink. You coming?”

“No drinking tonight,” Matt scolded with a chuckle. “By my reckoning, we have a court date tomorrow.”

Logan sucked in air, thought of any number of smartass retorts he could make, but kept them to himself. After everything that had gone on in since his arrest, he had entirely forgotten the case hanging over his head and the deadline for facing up to it. “Maybe a few more good deeds will produce enough witnesses to get me off…? I could go back and help…” He thumbed over his shoulder in the direction of the most chaos.

“Can’t hurt…but you’ll be good. I’ve got a good feeling about this one. As long as we’re on time…and you’re presentable…” Matt chuckled and Logan looked down at the state of his clothes. He hadn’t realized what a sorry mess he was…and wondered just how Matt knew.

So long as no one threw them any unexpected curveballs in court, by tomorrow night, Matt figured Logan would be a free man, could go home to the family he’d been isolated from since this had all began. Whatever else remained of The Hand in Havensport, Matt was confident he could take down on his own.

The melancholy pang of not belonging anywhere twisted in Matt’s stomach.

“See you back at the apartment?”

Again Logan snorted, but he did nod. “At the apartment,” he agreed. He’d have to walk alone; the Daredevil could not casually saunter the streets of Havensport, even with the street lights all dark tonight. But Logan didn’t mind being alone, and the walk would give him time to think about what he might say to Rachel, to everyone at Tigh Ard, when he was finally able to see them again. The Devil would take the high road, Logan the streets…and maybe he’d even pick up a bottle on the way.

Murdock couldn’t stop him from drinking it then.

From the shadows on the nearest rooftop, feeling the full moon upon his face, Matt followed Logan’s slow progress towards the apartment, wanting to make sure he was really okay. There would be no bike, not taxi, no ride, but he would be fine. Any wounds he’d picked up tonight would be erased from his body by the time he reached his bed; only the memories of them would remain. Matt knew things would return to normal, would be alright now. Just as he would be, in time, if only he could remember whatever had come before. But maybe one stop first before he took shelter. He did not need to hear Father Andrew tell him he’d done good…but he wanted to hear it nonetheless.

Just once, Matt wanted to hear the words his father would never say.


	31. 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to add this little wrap up bit as an interlude to story 2...

“I can’t stay.”

Those had been the last words Murdock had said to him, and Logan, around the rim of his beer bottle, had only nodded in agreement. No goodbyes…that wasn’t Logan’s way. He had nodded at those words, and as the other man, suitcase and briefcase in hand, had gone out the door of the apartment, muttered “Later.”

It was the closest he could get to goodbyes.

As promised, Matt got him off on the murder charges that had been brought against. With one other Wolverine registered in the county, and the possibility of any others passing through, the evidence against him was circumstantial at best. And given the recent rash of arrests of men in ninja costumes equipped with swords and a myriad of other exotic weapons, all it took was planting the suggestion that they too could have been responsible for the injuries the dead had received, for the jury to pass the not guilty verdict.

But Logan did not go home.

Since Matt was determined to scour Havensport for any remaining trace of either The Hand or Yakuza, Logan decided to do his part to help. Reports from Faith and from John indicated that all was as good as could be expected at Tigh Ard, given the earthquake and new additions to the family, and so there was no need for Logan to rush home. He put in his time with the crews of men and women cleaning up debris throughout the city, careful not to be seen by anyone he knew, all while seeking out the threat that had previously built without notice. It wouldn’t happen again…not if Logan had any say in the matter.

The entrance to the old subway construction site had collapsed, and the city leaders unanimously voted that, until the day it was decided to resume the project, the pit and the collapsed tunnels would remain as they were. The other entrances, located with the aid of a map left by Coulson and his team, were either verified as impassible or made so by the careful use of small explosives, their use being explained to the residents by city planners as necessary demolition of property damaged in the quake. How Murdock accomplished that, what strings he pulled, he never said, and though Logan was the one to set those detonations, he never thought to ask. He did what needed to be done, trusting Murdock’s judgement in this as he’d trusted him since their first meeting. Odd that he felt he owed the blind man anything…but without Murdock’s arrival, how far would The Hand have gotten before Logan discovered them, before the entire city and every person in it had been at risk?

Whatever had brought Matt to Havensport, it had come when most needed, and though Murdock had no obligation to this city or anyone in it, he had taken the risk. Now that it was done, that they were both satisfied that the Yakuza had, at least for the time being, vacated Havensport, Matt certainly deserved to know the truth of where he came from.

The few answers that Logan could have offered would probably have done more harm than good, to their friendship if nothing else. For a good Catholic boy whose soul clung to faith, Murdock sure was one to need to find the proof with his own eyes.

And really, Logan thought now, what man didn’t deserve the answers to the core questions of life. Who am I? Why am I here? Where did I come from?

In some ways, clones were luckier than most…for they might be able to find the answers to those questions. Someone, somewhere, had wanted them, created them. Maybe by going ‘home’ Matt would find his answers.

Logan, however, did not think he’d like the answers he found.

“I can’t stay.”

The man’s hand print remained upon the window where his hand had spread over the surface as if watching the rain through his fingertips, as if the splattering drops upon the glass held answers that might prompt him to stay despite his resolution not to. Staring at it now, Logan remembered how Matt had hesitated in the doorway before passing through it and closing the door behind him. Had he been waiting for some word that might prompt him to change his mind?

But that was preposterous. And Logan, no prone to the melancholy of ‘missing’ someone he had come to consider a friend, pushed the feeling aside with a grunt, finished the now warm beer…and continued to stare at the gradually distorting smudge of a handprint in the condensation upon the glance.

Soon it would be gone too.

He should go home. What needed to be done was done now. Faith had gone back to her life, Constantine likewise. Phil Coulson and his brood of mercenary soldiers had left days ago, satisfied before Murdock had been that the threat in Havensport had been abated. With Matt gone as well, and the city’s recovery well on its way, there was no reason for Logan to delay any longer…

…except that he felt peculiarly empty now that the adrenalin of the recent adventure had bled off and he was left empty-handed. He had not realized how much he had missed a little action, some good old-fashioned ass kicking, the rush of facing down an enemy and saving the world. As much as ‘home’ and ‘normal life’ called to him, how was he supposed to go back to that after what he had seen and done?

What would he say about where he had been?

Sooner or later his arrest and trial were going to be public knowledge that would trickle back into the family. Sooner or later, someone one who had seen him in Havensport the night of the earthquake was going to speak up, and that news would reach home too. What could he say then? What would he say?

Fretting about it now, however, was pointless, and any possible story he might dream up to cover his absence, to explain himself, was only going to get buried under the truth eventually anyhow. Best to face it all head on, refuse to talk about it if he could, be honest when there was no choice left to him.

First things first, however, he needed to speak to Rachel…to thank her for the bail money…just to thank her for keeping his secrets as he presumed she had…and to apologize for having dropped off the face of the earth when he had.

She was probably going to kill him for it…but then she would forgive him and all would be well. He hoped.

Yes, he needed to do that…to talk to her.

“I can’t stay.”

This time the sentiment was his own. Instead of moving from the sofa, however, he reached for another beer, flipped the top off the bottle with his thumb, and listened to the ticking sound it made as it bounced off the wall and skittered across the floor, and continued to stare at the handprint on the window.


End file.
